Margaret V Pauline

I covered a Neko Case song. It contains a huge 'Blade Runner' style synth, like many of her songs.

I’ve been trying to be conceptual about the covers I do here. Done a couple Bejar on here, this is the second Neko song. Covered a Will Sheff/ Okkervil River song. Keep it all close to home. I’ve picked their songs because they’re friends, friends that are not going to get weird about anything, copyright-wise. Let them sue me! Join the club. No one in the club at the moment.

The covers are an exercise for me. I try to find a new arrangement for them , good or bad. I can’t bring myself to post acoustic covers that I sang into my phone. It’s just not my strength. So I spend some time on these. Most of it figuring out what I like and what I don’t like. There was a perfectly acceptable version of this song finished after an hour or two but I listened to it and asked the musical question “Why do you exist?” It had no answer. These versions exist because I think it’s a fun way to explore. Sometimes an idea jumps out that is separate from the song, something I stumbled onto along the way. That’s what I’m looking for. An idea that lives on its own when the song is stripped away. Like this thing from the cover I did of ‘Chump Change’:

Sure, it’s better when there is a song attached to it, but I hear so much possibility in there. It’s a vibe. There is also the intro to the cover I did of Destroyer’s ‘The Pornographers’:

I might make that into its own song. Good bassline. Good beat. Sweet ass ukulele. All the ingredients. Yes, I know it needs a song.

For the cover of ‘White’ by Okkervil River, I put my own piece of music underneath the song, a kind of aural pentimento, and moved things around to make it all fit. Shortened some lyrics, lengthened some music. Again, things you would only do to your friend’s songs. I don’t need Don Henley coming after me because he thinks I illegally interpolated ‘Dirty Laundry”. Fuck that.

I don’t know if it is a common songwriting prompt to cover someone’s song and go off on your own tangent, to the point where it is a different song. It’s one approach of many. If it doesn’t work, you have recorded a cover of a song you like. Not such a bad deal. This cover is not a big re-invention, it is actually pretty straight. Different but pretty straight.

I was initially going to cover ‘Margaret V Pauline’ in the style of Romeo Void. Talk sing all the lyrics, but then I’d have to come up with a big saxophone hook to anchor the song and… well you know, it turns into a whole thing. The buried drum beat is a subtle nod to that idea. I also didn’t want Neko to think I was mocking her, because she is kind of sensitive that way. I texted Paul Rigby, one of few people on earth that knows the proper chords, and asked him to break down the song into its simplest elements. Root notes and one harmonic. I wanted the arrangement to be elemental, stripped down to its essence. I got over that idea as well, but there are traces of it here. In the mellotron flute and the big monophonic synth that drives the whole thing.

I decided I would use the first take, whatever mistakes were made I would build around them. I left out a line about cinnamon waves but it works fine without it. Couldn’t figure out the phrasing and I had other chords and lyrics to worry about. They keep coming at you when you’re playing a song, relentless. It had a Casio beat for awhile, but I ditched it. I found that ARP2600 synth sound and loved how it reminded me of ‘Blade Runner’. The big Vangelis synth. I combined it with the mellotron flute, liking how different they were. It made them more complimentary. Once they kicked in I was happy, that’s half the song right there!

It is a strange dynamic between the way I treat covers and the way I treat original demos. I’m not super concerned about the demos, they’re not done yet. These covers are not going to have a later improved version. This is what it is. I may take some ideas from the arrangements, like I’ve said, but odds are I’m not coming back to rescue this one. So I find myself bouncing 10 different mixes. Turn the drums down! Vocals up! Blade Runner synth up! Blade Runner synth WAY up! It doesn’t matter but one must take some pride in what they do. However humble. I stopped at what I thought was an interesting place. It’s all I can do.

Song after the jump. Margaret V Pauline. A song written by Neko.