“You’re So Vain” is both obvious and perfect for Donald Trump, but every time I see him with [former presidential candidate] Chris Christie, I think about the Bowling for Soup song “Friends Like You.”
(Submit a song via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
All this week, via our Politics & Policy Daily newsletter, Elaine asked readers, “What song should Donald Trump come out to when he walks on stage Thursday night at the Republican National Convention?” On Tuesday night, in a surprise stage entrance to introduce his wife before her convention speech, Trump sauntered out in a silhouette against a glowing-blue background (reminiscent of Close Encounters) with Queen’s rock anthem “We Are the Champions” filling the arena. (Unfortunately The Donald wasn’t wearing the regalia of Freddie Mercury.)
So which song did Elaine and the P&PD team pick among the scores of reader submissions? Carly Simon’s ode to narcissism:
The refrain is very meta:
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?
Thanks to reader David Neufeld for the winning pick. The runners-up were DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” (a primary-themed pick from reader Raymond Williams) and the old American spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands” (an ominous pick from Charles Patterson). Regarding the latter, here’s a rendition more in line with Trump’s WrestleMania past:
Some honorable mentions from Elaine were Queen’s “I Want It All” (via Christopher Boehme) and the theme song from the musical Hair (via Geraldine Link). The most popular picks from readers were “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and “Send in the Clowns” by Judy Collins. One reader suggested “Real American” by Rick Derringer, “especially if Trump comes out to pyrotechnics.” Another pick was “Fucken Awesome”:
From the reader who recommended it:
Great band, great song, and sung by a woman to bring cross-over appeal. And really, what else can top “We Are the Champions” for self-assurance and braggadocio? Even better, the swearing adds a dash of New York values …
(Submit a song via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
All this week, Elaine—who writes our Politics & Policy Daily newsletter—has been soliciting reader responses to the question, “What song should Donald Trump come out to when he walks on stage Thursday night at the Republican National Convention?” Scores of you have written in, and Elaine will be announcing the top picks tomorrow, but right now, before The Donald struts out (or maybe flies out?) to the podium tonight, here’s an over-the-top entry from Susie that I couldn’t resist posting as a note, namely to publish the words “carnelian-red dripping maw”:
Trump’s walk-out melody at the RNC should be “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.” Costume and staging matter, too. His entrance will be preceded by a veritable battalion of marching, naked-but-draped, blonde bombshells (literally). His profligately gilt-edged children—clearly branded TRUMP on their foreheads, and with all their strings and the master puppeteer visible by over-head projection—will also join the procession, dropping tiny-but-very-white redneck effigies along his walkway (to mark his path of retreat).
Trump enters with a dark and crookedly flowing cape sporting stripes pulsing in neon yellow. The papier mâché wall following him is decorated in pesos-stuffed piñatas and bordered in the blood of migrants. The music will abruptly stop on a loud and jarring note immediately upon him reaching the podium and just after the crowd-circulated collection plates have been gathered into his grasping hands. Photo op: His orange face will outshine his yellow pulsing stripes, and the green of Republican dollars falling from his blistered hands into the black hole of his drooling, carnelian-red dripping maw will sparkle in the light of a purple Lucifer’s welcoming embrace.
That’s not what Ben Carson had in mind. Or Boehner.
(Submit a song via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
Reader Mike Kludt really lives up to the daily 4:20 p.m. timestamp for our Track of the Day feature:
I’m not sure I’d call these transformative, but they are eye-and-ear-catching. A friendly discussion of Bob Dylan led me to this: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs playing a bluegrass version of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35.” The sound is so completely different from Dylan’s, yet you can see a similar mischievousness in their faces as they play. Hearing two veteran bluegrass performers sing “everybody must get stoned” is priceless.
While channel surfing recently, I happened upon that fount of surreal covers, The Lawrence Welk Show. There on my television were Gail Farrell and Dick Dale singing “One Toke Over The Line” [seen above]. At first I couldn’t believe this snuck by Lawrence; perhaps the references to Jesus and Mary gave it cover as a spiritual. But I realized that despite the overt mention of marijuana use, it isn’t really a pro-drug song; the main character is in pretty rough shape. (Seeing Myron Floren choke on the introduction is good for a chuckle, too.)
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
Caroline from Los Angeles—“a long-time reader, first-time poster”—writes:
Most people, like me, probably experienced Beck’s “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime” for the first time in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry’s haunting sci-fi fable about the desperate things we do to pretend that awful things didn’t happen. This fan video of the song is showing its age, but it’s maybe kinda cool and appropriate that it’s faded and blurry with time.
What surprised me was that Beck’s version is a cover. The song started out as a 1983 synth-pop reverb-fest by an outfit called The Korgis. (Trivia note: James Warren said he wrote it in 10 to 15 minutes—it just came to him—and yet he we are.)
The Beck version was also used in the Omega episode of the short-lived Fox TV series Dollhouse, scoring the moment when Echo started to reclaim her identity. But Eternal Sunshine will probably be how most of us remember it, to the extent that it lasts in our imperfect memories.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
I’ve been following it intermittently for a while now, especially when I need a break from political coverage. It first caught my eye when you featured Richard Thompson, [who also sang] “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.” I had just shared that video, again, on Facebook, and friends were certain that I had suggested it. But I digress.
Covers of songs—sometimes they are great, sometimes they are terrible. Pearl Jam has covered so many songs that I could spend all day just talking about and listening to their covers. Scrolling through the archive, I thought first of Jeff Buckley, which of course led me to think about I’m Your Fan, a compilation of Leonard Cohen covers by various artists. [CB: There’s another compilation of Cohen covers, I’m Your Man, which I bought after seeing the 2005 documentary of the same name, and two of its best covers are Rufus Wainwright’s “Chelsea Hotel #2” and Antony Hegarty’s “If It Be Your Will.”]
But I think I’ll take this opportunity to show some love to The Church’s album of covers from 1999, A Box of Birds. They cover the Monkees, the Beatles, Ultravox, and Neil Young, among others. I enjoyed the eclectic song selection and the hints at the band’s sense of humor and fun. Some of the tracks are faithful to the originals, others are uniquely The Church. Here’s their cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” in all of its trippy glory.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
I am the type of person that doesn’t think TV soap operas are cool. I certainly disapprove of “kiddy country” acts. I also like to think that I don’t go for over-produced, artfully designed to tug-at-your-heartstrings music or video.
But I love this video of two young girls singing a Lumineers song on an extremely soapy network TV show, Nashville. So sue me.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
After his 2013 album For Now I Am Winter, Bafta award-winning artist Ólafur Arnalds collaborated with vocalist Arnor Dan, with whom he also performed on the Broadchurch soundtrack. Most of Arnalds’ music is classified as “neo-classical,” and though Destiny’s Child may seem a strange choice for such an artist, his cover of “Say My Name” emphasizes the desperation in the lyrics with slow, lush strings and somber acoustic piano.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
Today’s the day in history—July 14, 1995—that the MP3 format was released to the public. Suzanne Vega’s a cappella song “Tom’s Diner,” off her 1987 album Solitude Standing, was the first song used to test the revolutionary format:
The story goes: While German electrical engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg was working on a type of file compression that would make CD-quality recordings available as computer files, he heard “Tom’s Diner” playing down the hall from his office. He figured it would be nearly impossible to compress the song without detrimental effects to Vega’s “warm a capella voice” and decided to make it the test subject for his development of the “MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3,” a.k.a. the MP3.
According to Vega, Brandenburg’s early attempts at reformatting the song produced “monstrous distortions, as though the Exorcist has somehow gotten into the system, shadowing every phrase.” In spite of these early failures, he used the song to fine tune his compression techniques, making sure the format was capable of picking up incredibly subtle vocal and instrumental effects. The end result of this experimentation is likely how you’re listening to Tom’s Diner right now. Its use in the process became a folk tale among engineers and Vega became known in audiophile circles as “The Mother of the MP3.”
(Submit a song via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
A reader in London, David Durant, takes out the cowbell but adds a lot more:
Without doubt, my favourite totally transformed cover song is Apollo 440’s version of the classic Blue Oyster Cult 1976 hit “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” (The Bangles cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter” is also awesome, but Apollo 440 takes the crown here.) I love the way the timeless smoothness of Blue Oyster Cult’s lyrics remains in place but is enhanced by the high energy of a rhythm section. This is what I want played at my funeral.
(Submit your own via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
A reader in Mississippi, Amy Jones, recommends a cover that really brings out the creepiness of the lyrics:
An episode of the American drama series Stalker highlighted the cover of Blondie’s hit in its fifth episode, though I first stumbled upon it via Spotify. I try not to look at my phone while driving, but I had to glance down to check if this was a cover of that old song I had never thought much about but dismissed as silly.
The band, Until the Ribbon Breaks, describes their style as one that “blends genres like electronic, pop, rock, and hip-hop … with a sharp alternative edge.” Their cover of “One Way or Another” certainly fits that description, with soft beats underlying harmonies with just enough dissonance to be beautiful but interesting. My favorite covers are those that recast the lyrics in such a different light that the listener considers them in a new way, and this British band succeeds as their vocalist croons the old playful words with haunting conviction.
Debbie Harry was inspired to write the original song after her experience with a stalker. She told Entertainment Weekly:
I was actually stalked by a nutjob, so it came out of a not-so-friendly personal event. I tried to inject a little levity into it to make it more lighthearted. It was a survival mechanism.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
A reader in Pittsburgh, Josh, has a moving tribute to his friend:
I’ve been following your cover series and would like to contribute a favorite. In March, I lost my best friend Chris—far, far too young at only 36. In suburban Pittsburgh in the ’90s, we were an unlikely pair. He was black, I was white, and about as physically and socially different as could be. In 10th grade, Chris joined the marching band, and playing together in the trumpet section, we became inseparable.
In band, you played a wide variety of genres and were exposed to many influences. Chris and I cultivated eclectic musical tastes, and in the pre-Napster/iTunes/Spotify days, when people defined identity by the contents of their CD binder, we could exchange any band or genre without shame. He blew my mind with a Prince record; I floored him with the White Album. It united us, and as we passed through the momentary catastrophes and tender triumphs of adolescence, we always had a soundtrack.
So my selection for this cover series is “Let It Be” by Gladys Knight and the Pips:
McCartney’s sparse hymn is transformed by Gladys’ soaring gospel performance and the call and response into an urgent demand. It almost seems as if the Pips’ plaintive echoes are restraining her from ascending to another plane of existence.
The Beatles began by playing Motown songs, and after their explosion, Motown artists covered them frequently. This cover of “Let It Be” has been solace in my personal grief, but also as an echo of the troubled times in which it was written and recorded, and a tonic to the current unrest in our civic society. I know Chris loved this song, and I know he would agree.
(Submit a cover via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
