From their forthcoming covers ep The Velveteen Age, we are presented with two tracks from Diane Birch to whet our appetites. While the merits of the cover can be discussed from here to eternity, especially when the X-factor is systematically destroying the concept on a weekly basis, I’ll always give them a listen. I always approach with a sense of optimism that maybe the artist has heard something hidden in a song that wasn’t obvious at first. This is even works with some ‘sacred-cows’. Personally I never fully understood Lennon’s flippant disgust at the failing hippie scene until I heard Liam Gallagher’s delivery of I Am The Walrus.
What Birch hears in Echo & The Bunnymen’s exquisite Bring On The Dancing Horses is a mystery to me. I hear layers of vagueness, self doubt but subsequently fragile hope. Birch approaches the song with all the carefulness of an X-factor contestant, trying to hit all the correct notes that keep the house-wives phoning in. The over-confident arrangement with lounge-act piano and metronomic rhythms is designed with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. While her Chrissie Hynde style vocals are certainly impressive, she saps all the ambiguity from the song. It becomes something you can click your fingers to. When compared to the original, it’s an absolute insult.
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She then takes the playfulness of Siouxie & The Banshees’ Kiss Them For Me and pushes it to the extremes of Play That Funky Music White Boy. Both these songs are covers Mark Ronson style: where the notes of a piece of music are there to be exploited rather than explored. It’s arguably good fun but when we compare them to the depth offered by the originals, it’s merely a confusing experiment.
Listen to Diane Birch's version of Bring on the Dancing Horses at Bancamp
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