Q U E E R I C S

Gender-Bent Covers
Part four!

Up until the 30's, gender wasn't a huge consideration in covers: men would sing lyrics written from a woman's point of view, and vice versa, presumably because they assumed no one would actually get all confused about their orientation. I don't know what to blame for the change in thinking--Nazis? Economic depression? World War II?--but these days, it's typical for artists to change pronouns (and in some cases, whole lines) if they're covering a song by someone of the opposite sex, lest you think they're a fag or somethin'. Luckily for us, however, some people aren't afraid to put a whole new twist on familiar songs by playing them bent.

Huge thanks to Weed, Sarina, and Bassair for their contributions!

1. Veruca Salt, "Somebody"
Original:
Depeche Mode

Lyrical Snippet:
"She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me"

Awesome?:
I pretty much want Martin Gore to be my dad, so you'd never get me to say that this is as good as the original. (If you're wondering, my Alternate Universe Family is rounded out by Lou Reed and Dolly Parton as my grandpa and grandma, and RuPaul as my mom.) There's some unfortunate synth piano happening in the cover and the vocals aren't quite as heartfelt as the original, but I'd never realized before how much this song sounds like it should have a lesbian interpretation. All that business about discussing your thoughts and feelings as equals? Definitely something you'd expect in a lesbian-penned song; hearing it from a heterosexual man is more unusual.

2. The Siddeleys, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes")
Original:
Edison Lighthouse

Lyrical Snippet:
"She ain't got no money
Her clothes are kinda funny
Her hair is kinda wild and free
Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me"

Awesome?:
The Siddeleys did an excellent job of turning an overwrought British pop song from the 70s into a super-twee 80s song; I'd never guess that this one was a cover. Both versions have their own charm, but I adore the Siddeleys for just fucking owning their version.

3. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Where The Wild Roses Grow"
Original:
... Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue

Lyrical Snippet:
"When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand
He wiped at the tears that ran down my face"

Awesome?:
You can't have Kylie on-hand at all times, so in many live performances of this song, her vocal is performed by Blixa Bargeld, the Bad Seeds' male guitarist. There was also a studio version released that featured his original guide vocal. Now, with the reiterations of "my name was Elisa Day!" in the chorus, it's hard to convince yourself that this is anything but a feminine character (though "she was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen" does take on a slightly different meaning when Nick Cave's singing to a dude), but I love it, because they play it totally straight. Here, watch them perform it--no giggling and winking about how hee hee, Blixa is a man! Just a guy singing a part written for a woman, and it's every bit as haunting as the original. I'm sure that those of you who are into a bit of Dorian Gray-esque homoerotic horror will appreciate this one.

4. John Barrowman & Daniel Boys, "I Know Him So Well"
Original:
Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson

Lyrical Snippet:
"Wasn't it good?
Wasn't he fine?
Isn't it madness
He can't be mine?
Didn't I know
How it would go?
If I knew from the start
Why am I falling apart?"

Awesome?:
Why doesn't John Barrowman just stick to singing? The man can't act to save his life, but oh, his pipes! We all know I lose my shit over queer duets, and here we have two men with beautiful voices singing about a third man. So many men! I'm in fag heaven! Musically, it's a pretty straight update of the original; it's been de-synthed, but there are no major genre changes. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a good overblown pop song, but if you don't like showtunes because you're a robot, it won't please you.

5. The Watson Twins, "Just Like Heaven"
Original:
The Cure

Lyrical Snippet:
"Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face, I kissed her head
Dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
'Why are you so far away?' she said
'Why won't you ever know
That I'm in love with you?
That I'm in love with you?'"

Awesome?:
I've been digging for a non-pronoun-switched cover of this song for awhile, so I was delighted to stumble across this one. It's a bit slow and dirgey, which is a very unfortunate thing to do to a song as wonderful as "Just Like Heaven," but I think having a female vocalist adds an interesting spin. It takes another Cure song about how Robert Smith is emotionally stifled and can't tell girls his feelings and gives it a tinge of internalized homophobia instead. Why IS she so far away?

6. The Lemonheads, "Frank Mills"
Original:
From the musical Hair

Lyrical Snippet:
"I met a boy called Frank Mills
On September 12th right here
In front of the Waverly, but unfortunately
I lost his address
He was last seen with his friend
A drummer, he resembles George Harrison of the Beatles
But he wears his hair tied in a small bow at the back
I love him, but it embarrasses me to walk down the street with him"

Awesome?:
Speaking of closeted homos! Awww. Of course, Crissy in the play is embarrassed to be seen with Frank Mills because he's a tough hippie biker and she's a good girl; several decades on, it sounds more like Evan Dando's embarrassed to be seen with an obviously gay leatherman because he's a good hetero boy. It's a very endearing little acoustic number, though it's unlikely to change your life. (However, a heterosexual man covering a song about another man from a Broadway musical wins all the points.)

7. A Static Lullaby, "Toxic"
Original:
Britney Spears

Lyrical Snippet:
"Baby, can't you see
I'm calling
A guy like you
Should wear a warning
It's dangerous
I�m falling
There�s no escape
I can't wait
I need a hit
Baby, give me it
You're dangerous
I'm loving it"

Awesome?:
I don't like A Static Lullaby or punk rock covers in general, so once I'd verified that they didn't change the lyrics, I was ready to present it as a cute novelty that someone would enjoy. Then I listened to it, and I was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I do. The screechy strings are fabulously translated to loud guitars, and I believe this guy. I think he's more turned on by this toxic guy than Britney is. (Reluctant queers are the theme of this series of gender-bent covers, I think.) If I have one complaint, it's that the production is really odd, but I could just have a bad MP3.

8. Lily Allen, "Naive"
Original:
The Kooks

Lyrical Snippet:
"I'm not saying it was your fault
Although you could've done more
Oh, you're so naive, yes, so
How could this be done?
You're such a smiling sweetheart
Oh, and your sweet and pretty face
It's such an ugly way
Something so beautiful
That every time I look inside
I know she knows I'm not fond of asking
True or false? It may be
That she's still out to get me"

Awesome?:
Well, it's just Lily Allen doing what Lily Allen does, but she does sound less smackable than the Kook who sings. You can read this one at least two ways: she might be addressing the girl she's involved with, who keeps cheating on her, or she may be appealing to the Other Woman who's stealing her boyfriend, a la "Jolene." The second intepretation never would've occurred to me with the original, but now that the cover's planted the idea in my head, I can see it just as easily there. Only the most well-chosen gender-bent covers make you consider the possibility that the original was bent. Well done, Lily Allen!

9. Candymachine 88 & Tina Root, "Ava Adore"
Original:
The Smashing Pumpkins

Lyrical Snippet:
"And you'll always be my whore
'Cause you're the one that I adore
And I'll pull your crooked teeth
You'll be perfect just like me
In you I feel so dirty, in you I crash cars
In you I feel so pretty, in you I taste god
We must never be apart"

Awesome?:
The original is creepy, the cover is creepy. What I do find interesting, though, is that a lot of the time when men cover songs by women, it ends up sounding a bit... unexpected, and making you think more carefully about conventional ideas of masculinity. When women cover songs by men, this isn't always the case. You could make an argument that "Ava Adore" is awfully violent for girl-on-girl, but I dunno; it sounds a lot like how goth chicks from the 90s wrote about their lesbionic tendencies to me, and since it's being covered by goths from the 90s, I'm not particularly shocked. Maybe Billy Corgan's anima is a bisexual spooky girl.

10. Grizzly Bear, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)"
Original:
The Crystals

Lyrical Snippet:
"Yes, he hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew I loved him
And then he took me in his arms
With all the tenderness there is
And when he kissed me
He made me his"

Awesome?:
The Crystals' version is very dissonant, because Phil Spector made them record it in a straightforward, euphoric way that sounds like it's condoning domestic abuse (and knowing Spector, it probably was). When you listen to it, you have to jar yourself out of your own complacency to comprehend how totally fucked up it sounds. Grizzly Bear's version makes you uneasy before you even realize what he's singing about--the plodding bass, the quavering vocals--and you might find yourself thinking about same-sex domestic violence with more alarm than you had in the past. Personally, I prefer Grizzly Bear's, because 1) it's gorgeous and 2) I can be certain that no one had a gun pointed at them while it was being recorded.

11. Nouvelle Vague, "Blister In The Sun"
Original:
Violent Femmes

Lyrical Snippet:
"Body and beats I stain my sheets I don't even know why
My girlfriend she's at the end she is starting to cry
Let me go on
Like I blister in the sun
Let me go on
Big hands I know you're the one"

Awesome?:
Nouvelle Vague are a cover band, but instead of "punk" or "lounge," their schtick is "extremely French." The lady on this one has such a heavy accent that I had to listen very carefully to determine that it was actually in English. Still, it's pretty cute. This girl can't stop masturbating! It's driving her girlfriend insane! Why do I love this premise so much?

12. The Killing Moon, "You Oughta Know"
Original:
Alanis Morissette

Lyrical Snippet:
"You seem very well, things look peaceful
I'm not quite as well, I thought you should know
Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity?
I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner
It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced
And are you thinking of me when you fuck her?"

Awesome?:
So far I've avoided featuring different covers of the same song, but I want to draw your attention to my plight: I really, really want a good, vitriolic, queer cover of this song, and I can't find one. After I found Jonathan Coulton's version, I thought "okay, I could be satisfied if one of those screamy pop-punk-emo-whatever gave it a shot." Then I come across these guys, who are one of those screamy pop-punk-emo-whatever bands, and they fall far from the mark. I guess he does get points for sounding like a hysterical queen, but the side effect is that I sympathize with the dude who left him. Plus, those ska horns just make me mad. You know who I really want to cover "You Oughta Know?" Trent Reznor. We should start a campaign. What do the kids do these days? Tweet? You should tweet him about it. It's not like he's got anything else going on.

Have a favorite gender-bent cover? Submit it and you might see it on a future list!