(Originally appeared on danieljhogan.com)
Just a jump to the left. Or something. Photo by imelenchon on morguefile.com.
[dc]I[/dc] am pretty open minded when it comes to cover songs.
I usually don’t mind when a song is shifted to a totally different style or genre. There are times, as rare as they may be, when a cover song is so different, it draws a lot of attention to just how different it is–and my brain hits the emergency brakes.
Such a time happened at a recent ballroom dancing class (See Previously). After learning our steps for the week, the teacher played some swinging big band music. I led, and began counting aloud, which is the only way I can pull off ballroom dancing.¹
Then, the singer crooned:
I feel stupid and contagious/
Here we are now, entertain us/
My right foot swung like a rusty pendulum, and hit Stephanie square in the shin. “Ow! Pay attention,” she said.
“Is this…” I mumbled aloud, sweat poured down my brow as if hearing some arcane spell oozing from the mouth of a cultist. “Is this…no, it can’t be…”
The singer continued with an upbeat,
A mulatto/
An albino/
A mosquito/
My libido/
Yeah!
My brain locked its wheels, hit the wall at 200 MPH, and my face contorted: “IS THIS A BIG BAND COVER OF SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT?!”
Stephanie, a member of MENSA, was immune to the confusing cover. “What?”
I leaned in close, my eyes wild like the protagonist in an H. P. Lovecraft story, and not-quite-whispered, “This. Is. A. Big. Band. Cover. Of. Smells. Like. Teen. Spirit.”
Stephanie, bless her, was more concerned with my feet trampling her own. As my brain tried to jump start itself, she took over leading. 1-2-3, “Snap out of it,” she said. Slow, slow, quick, quick. “And pay attention.” She glanced down at her bruised shins and leaned me against the mirror covered wall. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as she rubbed her feet and shins.
A cover of a Nirvana song was the last thing I expected at our ballroom dancing class. Actually, that is not quite true. The NEXT song was:
Oh, can’t you see me standing here?
I’ve got my back against the record machine/
I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen/
Oh, can’t you see what I mean?
I croaked. “Oh…no…”
Ah, I might as well jump. Jump!
Might as well jump.
Go ahead, jump. Jump!
Go ahead, jump. Jump!
My bones melted and I flailed like a rag doll in the wind. Stephanie shook her head and propped me up once again. “Now what?”
The letters built up on my lips, but like some eldritch horror, I dared not speak the name. Stephanie’s concerned eyes convinced me otherwise. “Va…Van…Halen.”²
“What about them?”
“This is a cover of…Jump.” I became a puddle on the floor, not unlike Lewis at the end of RoboCop, “Murphy…I’m a mess.”
This week’s class was sans wacky covers, but we did get to ballroom dance to the original version of The Power of Love from Back to the Future, so it all evened out, and I didn’t screw up nearly as much.
¹ I have to do the same thing when figuring out a tip on a check. Good thing I have eleven toes.
² Their first album is one of my all time favorites, and I own most of the Roth-era albums, including 1984.
³ He is older than I, and was around when the song was a hit. I wasn’t even three years old at the time.
Daniel J. Hogan is holding out for a big band cover of Creeping Death. Follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan.
