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100 best covers: #39 Great Big Sea “Run runaway”

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Great Big Sea has long since been a household name here in Canada and is relatively well-known elsewhere as well, counting amongst their fans actor Russell Crowe. They are likely the most famous band to come out of Newfoundland and for a while during the late 90s and into the 2000s, were one of the best-selling groups here, their high-energy folk and updated interpretations of traditional sea shanties obviously finding a home in the hearts of good Canadian youth.

It certainly found me on first listen with this very cover of Slade’s* “Run runaway”. I remember catching the video at some point in the summer of 1995 or 1996 on MuchMusic, right around the time their video for “Mari Mac” also caught my attention. It wasn’t long at all before these two songs could be heard from open residence room doors and through the open windows of student apartments all around Toronto. Both are excellent tunes but it was this re-interpretation that first sold me.

Slade’s original came out around the time that I was just finding my own feet with music, branching out from my parents’ oldies radio listening in the car and regularly watching the chumFM top 30 countdown on CityTV. I didn’t, of course, know this at the time, but this was Slade’s second go round and comeback venture, their biggest inroads into the North American market. They had been flirting with glam rock throughout the 70s and were quite popular at home in England. It took a cover by metal band Quiet Riot of their 70s hit “Cum on feel the noize” to finally drum up interest in the US, leading to a signing with a US label, and the first single released was, of course, “Run runaway”.

Recorded for their 11th studio album, “The amazing kamikaze syndrome”, “Run runaway” was very much of its time. It has soaring guitars that put together a stadium-ready hook and there’s those shout-along vocals that had me along for the ride, even though I didn’t understand them. But it was far from a sellout. Slade didn’t stray far from their roots, employing electric violin and adapting traditional Scottish jig elements for a hard rock world.

Then, more than a decade later, Great Big Sea, removed the rock and upped the traditional. Their cover has flutes, accordions and fiddles and is sung like a shanty. They even made it more upbeat, which I wouldn’t have thought possible as a pre-teen.

And though the original has the nostalgia factor going for it, I gotta give the edge to the cover here.

Cover:

Original:

*This is, I believe, the second cover of a Slade tune to find its way on to this list.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1993: #2 Adorable “Homeboy”

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So just two songs ago on this list, I posted about how I always connected the song in question, The Boo Radleys’ “Lazarus”, with drunkenly dancing at Toronto’s The Dance Cave back in the 90s and here’s another one I remember dancing to a heck of a lot back in the day. And though I definitely remember it from The Dance Cave as well, it is one of York University’s campus pubs that sticks with me when it comes to “Homeboy” by Adorable… and it’s mostly the fault of a young lady.

The pub in question was Jac’s in the basement of Norman Bethune College*, which I discovered early into my third year of “higher education” had alternative music and dancing on Friday nights, and the young lady was one of many who had caught my attention, but whom I later learned was very much interested in me. She requested the DJ play “Homeboy” and when he did, I recognized** the tune from the radio and joined her on the dance floor. I asked after the artist and it was only then that I connected the song with the group that also performed “Sunshine smile” and she added that it was her older brother that introduced her to the song. And just before I lost myself in the song, she laughingly whispered the word ‘Rage’ in my ear: an ongoing joke between the two of us about whether a song needed to be angry to be worth listening to.

Not long after that, I was out at my favourite music store at the time, Penguin Music, and found a copy of Adorable’s debut album, “Against perfection” on the used CD racks and snatched it up. It became one of my favourite new finds, spending a lot of time in my player. It would be years before I ever heard any of the group’s other work and this, thanks to the magic of the internet. Their largely forgotten sophomore (and only other released) long player was also quite good but fell victim to a music press that was keen to move on from the baggy and shoegaze scenes to which Adorable was attributed and embrace the budding brit pop wave.

“I’m tripping into the back of my mind
And your words like angels crash inside
And a word and a movement and a touch
And a word and a movement and it’s all too much”

“Homeboy” is exactly the type of song that I would’ve loved to dance to in the early to mid 90s. A rumbling bass line and peppy drumming underpins the entire track but really comes into focus during the verses as it acts as the counterpoint to Pete Fijalkowski’s wistful vocals. Then, at the chorus, the guitars crash in, finally making good on the chiming threats to take over, and our protagonist becomes more passionate in his delivery. Hence, the ‘rage’ the ‘young lady’ referred to. But the rage is not necessarily directed at anyone or any external thing – it’s an internalized shot as he bemoans, “You’re so beautiful”, over and over, at the one that got away.

This is a crazy good track and it makes me smile at all the memories, every damn time.

*Back in those days, all of the campus college had their own pubs, but from what I understand, all but the main campus pub have long-since closed.

**As did a bunch of my friends.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2003: #12 Coldplay “Clocks”

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There are times while making and posting all these lists of my favourite tunes and albums of each year, times that I err and omit an important (to me) work of music. Indeed, I don’t have a perfect system and my memory is not at all what it used to be.

And so it was, that while counting down my favourite tunes of 2002, I somehow forgot to include “The scientist”, one of my favourite Coldplay songs. However, I can’t very well go back when redo the list at this point so I decided to right this wrong by fudging this new series a bit. “Clocks” appeared on “A rush of blood to the head”, the same 2002 album as “The scientist”, and was released as a single in the US in November 2002. Nevertheless, given that was released in the UK a few months later in 2003, I decided to bend my admittedly malleable rules of inclusion and insert “Clocks” here, a year late, as a sort of reparation for the earlier error. Besides, “Clocks” is a great tune in its own right.

I’ve already shared a few times on these pages about my intro to Coldplay via “Yellow“and ultimately, their debut album “Parachutes“. By 2002, we were all champing at the bit for new music but as it turns out, the group weren’t at all happy with their efforts on the recording sessions for their sophomore record. It was delayed a number of times. In fact, after putting it off, they went out on a world tour and started recording their third album. And it was during these sessions that “Clocks” came out of the woodwork and would go on to save “A rush of blood to the head”.

“Clocks” begins and ends with that piano riff that is instantly recognizable, has been used and sampled by other artists, and is nearly impossible to evacuate from your head once it’s lodged there. The song was built around this riff and despite “Clocks” being planned for a later album, it became imperative to include on the gestating sophomore release.

“The lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh, I beg, I beg and plead”

The lyrics are unclear in literal meaning but they give a certain impression that is unmistakable. An emotion. An energy. And paired with that intense piano riff and the relentless drum beat, it all spells an immediacy. A sense that you are in the eye of the storm, feeling in slow motion while everything and everyone else is whipping around you triple time fast forward speed. This is life. This is the dream. And Coldplay is soundtracking it.

It’s a beautiful thing and no amount of radio overkill can dull the bright colours and rosy fragrance.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.