Klubbkören are an a capella (although often augmented with live bass, keyboards and percussion) vocal group/choir from Malmö in Sweden who I think deserve much more attention than they seem to get. I first discovered them a few years back, via their cover of Janelle Monae's "Tightrope" (one of my favourite songs from the last ten years or so). Everything they do is amazing. Here's Janelle's original, which is also amazing of course:
And here's Klubbkören's awesome version:
There's so much to love about it, from the bandleader's camp stylings, the super-cool bassist, the tightness of the whole thing and - most importantly - they all look to be having so much fun! I play it to cheer myself up quite often.
They've done some other awesome stuff too; here's their version of Pharrell's "Happy":
As good as - if not better - than the original, which I think's a damn good song in itself.
And their version of Nicki Minaj's "Bottoms Up" definitely improves on the original (in my not-so-humble opinion):
They do Little Dragon's "Little Man" too:
And Parliament's "I've Been Watching You":
They really "get" the spirit of the original; it's just superb.
And their version of the Commodores classic "Easy" is equally awesome, a really good rearrangement of the original:
They've done loads of other stuff too (many in Swedish, so possibly Swedish hits that I'm not familiar with), but these are the main well-known ones that I can bring to mind just now. Their arrangements are just so good. Their very existence makes the world a better place, I think. I just wish they were more well-known. They deserve it.
But I always go back to their version of "Tightrope", so much so that here's another version:
Sufficed to say, I love Klubbkören! Search for them on Youtube for more Klubbkören goodness (tip - Klubbkören rather than Klubbkoren brings up more results).
Basically, I think they should do more. I want them to cover every song ever...I'd certainly give anything they do a listen.
Another in an ongoing series about songs; originally they were going to be obscurities but as this one is very well known both in the UK and US, I think the series can be expanded to include...oh, just about anything really.
[WARNING: This has turned out to be insanely long, sorry 'bout that]
This one's about Andrea True Connection's "More, More, More" (readers of the c4c forum may wish to tune out now as I did a brief "bit" about it on there), a big UK & US hit in the spring of 1976. I wasn't going to write about it at all because I thought the story was quite well-known (hackneyed, even) but the full story contains details of which even I - as a pop nerd - was unaware, so let's do it.
Here's Andrea True performing the song on some European music show in 1976 (although it looks as though someone has smeared a heavy layer of Vaseline over the lens; certainly it takes soft-focus to a whole new level):
Andrea Marie Truden (her birth name; Andrea True was just one of her pseudonyms) was born on 26th July 1943 in Memphis, Tennessee, where she attended a Catholic girls' school prior to moving to New York City in an attempt to break into the film industry. Although she got sporadic minor roles in mainstream films, by the end of the 1960s she had moved into porn films, initially Scandinavian-produced, but later on, she had became something of a fixture of the New York hardcore porn industry. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s she appeared in over 50 porn flicks, mainly under the name Andrea True, but also under different pseudonyms, such as Inger Kissin, Catherine Warren, Singe Low and Andrea Travis.
In 1975, she went to Jamaica to appear in an advert for a real estate company, but due to an attempted (but ultimately unsuccessful) coup against Michael Manley's government, a State of Emergency was declared and the government banned asset transfers out of Jamaica. This prevented Andrea from taking the earnings from her commercials back to the States with her.
In what now seems a bit of a masterstroke, she called the American record producer Gregg Diamond down to Jamaica, with the plan of recording a song which Diamond would then take back to the US for release, thus bypassing the asset transfer rules in place at the time.
- - - INTERLUDE - - -
Gregg Diamond (born 4th May 1949, died 14th March 1999 of gastrointestinal bleeding at the sadly young age of 49) had first come to prominence working on David Bowie's "Young Americans" album the previous year (well, tangentially; his brother Godfrey Diamond contributed to the album, as did a young Luther Vandross and Andy Newmark, Sly & The Family Stone's late-era drummer). He wrote and released a number of records under the name Gregg Diamond Bionic Boogie, including this one, "Hot Butterfly", featuring a lead vocal from Vandross:
That one wasn't a hit in the UK; his only UK hit was "Cream (Always Rises To The Top" (again with Vandross on lead vocal), which reached #61 in January 1979:
He also wrote and produced an album for George McCrae (of "Rock Your Baby" fame) called "Diamond Days", which whilst not a chart hit, did produce a club hit, "Love In Motion":
- - - INTERLUDE ENDS - - -
So, back to Andrea True, who as you will recall, was down in Jamaica in 1975 and had contacted Gregg Diamond to help her make a recording. So Diamond decamped to Jamaica with a master tape of an instrumental track that he'd earlier recorded in a studio owned by the son of Les Paul (yes, the guitar guy), with himself on percussion and piano, Steve Love on guitar, Jim Gregory on bass and his brother Godfrey on drums. He had no lyrics for the track at the time; the intention was that he and True would collaborate on these and Andrea would then record her vocal. So, they wrote the lyrics (apparently within an hour), Andrea laid down her vocal and some overdubs were also recorded by the Mighty Sparrow horn section (who - in a happy coincidence - Gregg had bumped into in the lobby of the hotel in which he was staying).
The recording made, Gregg flew back to the States and commissioned Tom Moulton to remix the track at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studio (having previously made a deal with Buddah Records to release the track). This remixed recording was initially only released to clubs and discos in late 1975, but proved so popular that it was given a full release by Buddah in early 1976 (under the moniker of Andrea True Connection) and became a hit in pretty much all record-buying territories: a #4 hit on the US Hot 100 (and the 17th biggest-selling single in the US in 1976), a #5 hit in the UK (hitting its peak in May 1976 and spending 10 weeks in the top 50; it was the 66th biggest-selling UK single of the year). It was a number one hit in Canada and performed well elsewhere: #6 in Ireland, #9 in Germany, #11 in Italy, #19 in Australia, #23 in Spain, #25 in New Zealand (and no doubt some other places I've missed).
Before moving on to related matters, I want to concentrate on that lyric in a bit more detail:
Oooh how do you like your love Oooh how do you like your love So if you want to know How I really feel Get the cameras rolling Get the action going Baby you know My love for you is real So take me where you want to Boy my heart you steal More more more How do you like it how do you like it More more more How do you like it how do you like it More more more How do you like it how do you like it Oooh how do you like your love Oooh how do you like your love So if you want to know How I really feel Get the cameras rolling Get the action going Baby you know My love…
Now, if that's not written about making a pornographic film - it's not even double-entendre, it's single-entendre! - then I don't know what is. But I don't think this was particularly remarked upon at the time, even though it must have been known that Andrea True was a porn performer. Certainly Tom Moulton was unaware of Andrea's film career, although he said he "wondered a bit about the lyric" while remixing the track (his later comment on the track was "it wouldn't have come out so pretty if I had known what it was about"). Once I twigged just what it was about, though, I always found it really funny whenever I heard it played on the radio (it remains something of a radio staple to this day) with the DJ making no comment on its subject matter.
An album (also titled "More, More, More" followed, with further songs featuring "suggestive" lyrics written by Gregg Diamond), but it didn't chart in the UK. However, a further single taken from this album, "N.Y., You Got Me Dancing", became a US #27 hit in 1977, but didn't chart in the UK:
Andrea - by then jaded with porn movies and wanting to concentrate on her singing career - was teamed up with Michael Zager to produce a follow-up album, "White Witch". Again, although the album didn't chart in the UK, it did give Andrea a second hit single, "What's Your Name, What's Your Number" (co-written by Zager and Roger Cook; that Roger Cook didn't half have his finger in a lot of pies!), a UK #34 in the spring of 1978:
Incidentally, Zager's best-known and most enduring song, "Let's All Chant" - credited to The Michael Zager Band - was a UK top ten hit at much the same time, reaching #8 that same spring, seen here in a super-extended mix (if not exactly great video quality):
Andrea released a third album, "War Machine" in 1980, but it wasn't a success and later that year had surgery to remove a goitre on her vocal cords, which effectively ended her singing career. She attempted a return to porn movies, but - cruelly, I think - at nearly 40, was deemed "too old" and gradually faded into obscurity, although she still received royalties from her music.
She (and "More, More, More") did, however, briefly return to the limelight when the Canadian band Len sampled the instrumental break from "More, More, More" to form the basis of their hit, "Steal My Sunshine", a US #9 hit in the summer of 1999 and a #8 hit in the UK in late 1999/early 2000:
Gregg Diamond received a co-writing credit on the song, but sadly died three months before its release.
Want More, More, More? Here's some cover versions:
Bananarama teamed up with production trio Stock, Aitken & Waterman for a version in 1993 which became a #24 hit:
Rachel Stevens (of S Club 7 fame) also had a major UK hit (#3 in October 2004) with her version of the song:
Inevitably, Dannii Minogue got in on the act too:
Even more inevitably, saucy old Sam Fox had a go, combining it with a cover of Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" and managing to make it sound even more blatantly suggestive than the original:
Here's a version by Valentina (whoever she is/was):
And finally, a version in Spanish (Mas, Mas, Mas) from Andrea herself (sorry I can't find a better version; how the uploader managed to mangle both the audio and the video so badly is beyond me:
And that's just about all I can say about "More, More, More". I think it was probably quite enough, wasn't it?
Another in a "series" about "odd" songs - ones that stand out for one reason or other, usually because they were little-loved or even ignored at the time, but still get regular play on oldies stations (and yes Radio 2, you're included). I probably should have done a numbered sequence of them, but didn't think to do so at the time. I should really get around to doing that.
[Edit @ 22/09/2016: This is now rectified...I think.]
Anyway, this one's about "Moviestar" (oh yeah, all one word for this one) by the Swedish artist Harpo. It's incredibly cheesy, but I see that as a good thing:
It only made #24 in the UK charts in April 1976 (although the track itself was recorded the previous year), but I'd be amazingly surprised if you - assuming you live in the UK and listen to radio and all that - hadn't heard it before. And once heard, never forgotten (that can be taken as either complimentary or not, depending on your tastes). However, it was his only UK hit.
Harpo (born Jan Harpo Torsten Svensson, on the 5th April 1950 in a suburb of Stockholm) was, however, a big pop star not only in his native Sweden for a brief period; this success also translated to much of the rest of Europe as well as - strangely - Australasia. The song was a number one hit in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and (naturally) Sweden. It was actually a number one in Sweden twice, first the English version, then again in a Swedish version. It also made #3 in Australia, #9 in New Zealand and #13 in Ireland.
It's the song I'm interested in though, rather than Harpo himself (although his alarmingly short chart career is quite interesting, spanning only 1973-1976, is in itself quite fascinating). He's got quite a good Wikipedia page that goes into all that stuff, if you want more background (and who wouldn't!?) then that's the place to go.
Obviously he performed the song, but he also wrote it (from the songwriting credits, this suggests both music and lyrics), although the production and arrangement is credited to one Bengt Palmers. As far as I can tell, Bengt Palmers was (and still is) a big cheese in the Swedish music industry. I like to think of him as the Simon Cowell of the Swedish version of X-Factor, "Reach For The Stars".
As for "Moviestar", it's got a number of interesting things going for it, not least the lyrics:
You feel like Steve McQueen
When you're driving in your car
And you think you look like James Bond
When you're smoking your cigar
It's so bizarre
You think you are a new kind of James Dean
But the only thing I've ever seen of you
Was a commercial spot on the screen
Movie Star oh Movie Star
You think you are a Movie
Movie Star oh Movie Star
You think you are a Movie
Star
You should belong to the jet-set
Fly your own private Lear jet
But you worked in the grocery store every day
Until you could afford to get away
So you went to Sweden to meet Igmar Bergman
He wasn't there or he just didn't care
I think it's time for you my friend
Just stop pretending that you are a...
(Movie Star oh Movie star) etc.
It's obviously written about a particular person, but I can't work out who. Then again, my Swedish cultural knowledge is sadly lacking.
Another interesting fact about the track is that one of the backing singers was Anna-Frid Lyngstad (yes, that one out of ABBA). She did the "Moviestar, oh moviestar, oh-oh-oh" bits in the backing. But considering that ABBA had already won Eurovision in 1974, it does make you wonder what she was doing singing backing vocals (uncredited too) on a track the following year? Admittedly Harpo was big in Sweden at the time, but even so? A favour returned maybe?
Anyway, here's some cover versions, which are always interesting (except when they're shite):
Here's a version by Stereo Total from 1995. It's pretty faithful to the original:
A more electronically-based version by the Scandinavian outfit "And One" from 1996:
And why not this - a Spanish version from Miguel Gallardo:
Interestingly, Miguel didn't do a completely straight version; he retained the melody but seemingly completely rewrote the lyrics and called it "Tu amante o tu enemigo". My Spanish isn't very good (in fact my understanding of the language is pretty much non-existent) but I don't think he's singing about the same subject as Harpo.
And of course, Sacha Distel had a go at it (retitling it "Baby Star"):
Personally, I think Sacha would give anything a go back then. Not to imply that he was a hack or anything, he was just into singing, I reckon.
This, though, is my favourite cover (I can't even make a reasonable attempt at the artist name, something like Elakelaiset but with accents all over the shop) but I have figured out what they retitled it for their version - "Humppastara" (whatever that means):
I think it's the shoehorning in of an oompah rhythm that elevates it to a new level.
Bet there's loads more versions out there but - as ever - I can't be bothered to track them all down. I am, after all, lazy.
However, I've a few more like this up my metaphorical musical sleeve. Don't say you weren't warned!
The whole of the last post about Patience and Prudence was just a preamble to this, the link being that this song was their other UK "hit" single, "Gonna Get Along Without You Now":
It reached no. 22 in the UK in 1957 (no. 11 in the USA, their second-biggest hit there). As a not very interesting aside, this makes Patience and Prudence quite unusual in that both their UK singles made the charts but failed to hit the top 20 in the days when there only was a top 30. That takes some doing (i.e. I can't think of any other examples).
Of course, that wasn't the first version of the song that I heard (being born 14 years after it was a hit probably did for that). The first version I heard is the one that most people know, the Viola Wills disco version:
It was a big hit (number 8 in the UK charts) in 1979 and I think it's testament to the strength of the song that it actually sounds as though it was written as a disco song in the first place.
It wasn't, of course, but nor was it written for Patience and Prudence. It comes originally from 1951; written by Milton Kellem and apparently the earliest recording is this one from Teresa Brewer, recorded the following year:
So to begin with (assuming this was the original arrangement) it seems like it was written as a swing number and had this been the first version that I heard, I think I'd consider it the definitive one. It's lyrically quite hard-edged and Ms. Brewer delivers the lines with the appropriate amount of sass.
But this is (again apparently, as it was recorded after the fact) the original arrangement:
Either way, these earlier arrangements that just make the Patience and Prudence version seem even weirder. Then add this into the mix, a version from 1956 by the Bell Sisters:
But before getting into just quite how weird the Patience and Prudence version is, let's hear some other versions (there's been, to use a technical term, loads of them). So, in roughly chronological order following P and P's version:
Chet Atkins does a purely instrumental (guitar) version (date unknown I'm afraid):
Skeeter Davis (1964), in a a distinctly more countrified style:
Tracey Dey (1964) giving it the old Wall of Sound treatment:
The Caravelles (around 1964), much closer to Patience & Prudence's arrangement:
The "other" UK hit version, a Latin-influenced version from Trini Lopez (1967):
And then - also in 1967 - came a rocksteady version by Brent Dowe & The Melodians:
And here's a quite splendid Northern Soul version from The Vibrations (I'd guess late 1960s):
Bad Manners, undoubtedly influenced by the Melodians' version, did a ska take on it in the early 1980s:
And finally a couple of contemporary versions; the Lemonheads do a good one (extremely faithful to the original, bizarrely):
Even Zooey Deschanel has had a go, recording a version with M. Ward under their "She & Him" moniker:
And there's a whole load more - it must be one of the most covered songs ever, which is not something I was expecting when I started out on this - Tina Charles, UB40, Soraya Arnelas, Kati Kovacs and a load of others that I can't be bothered to track down right now. You get the idea.
But back to Patience and Prudence's version. As with everything else they did, it seems to have this weird production; the words "ethereal", "eerie" and "otherworldly" come up a lot when describing their stuff and I'd not argue with that. It describes their sound well and never better than on "Gonna Get Along Without You Now". Everything just comes together to make it one of the weirdest pop records ever.
Perhaps it's not wise to investigate exactly why; something to do with the undoubted weirdness of having two sisters (10 and 11 years old at the time, remember) singing a fuck-you-I-don't-need-you-sneaky-lying-fucker-I-don't-need-no-man lyric, all over what was - for the time - a quite sophisticated orchestral backing.
Is it cognitive dissonance? Something like that.
Anyway, it's a fucking brilliant song, whoever's singing it.
I'm trying to find where this post has disappeared to...
...in the meantime I can only link back to this page in a self-recursive loop.
I think I accidentally deleted the original, can't think of anything else. I know it was there to begin with, but it's not there now...anyway, it was pretty much just about how much I love this song:
And then I had another version from Love Generation:
Actually, I think I'll just leave it that way now; you can get the other Youtube links (plus some more I missed at the time) from the Wikipedia page anyway, so all that's gone is my unique top-of-the-head can't-be-bothered-looking-things-up style and let's face it - that's no loss!
Although I'm not sure I'll ever get to use the phrase "Teutonic Pop Gods" in a sentence again.
In an unexpected move, after my (frankly ill-researched, off-the-top-of-my head) bit on Reparata's Shoes last post, Reparata herself got in touch on Twitter! The actual real proper Mary O'Brien Reparata!!
She very kindly gave me the Wikipedia link which is much more thorough than the version I gave:
[Edit @ 22/09/2016: This wasn't meant to be a series to begin with, but it's turned into one, so I've slightly altered the title to reflect that. And by "Odd Songs" I don't really mean that they are odd - although many of them are - it's just a catch-all title for any fabulous songs that I want to write about]
For well over thirty years, I've sort of been obsessed with this song. I blame those fucking Mullerice adverts from the late 80s (but that's another story).
The first time I was properly aware of it (and its long history) was from Betty Boo's Doin' the Do:
At first listen it seems that the divine Alison Clarkson (Betty Boo was, unsurprisingly, a stage name) just took the "you're going to lose a good thing" bit and interpolated into her song, but the more you hear it, you can pick out other bits of melody from "Captain Of Your Ship"; they don't seem sampled from a particular source, but are definitely in there.
Anyway, Betty was just one of a long line of pop stars directly covering the song, or taking elements from it. It's a song that - whilst hardly being in "Yesterday" territory - has a lot of cover versions, all the way from 1968 to the present day. But the interesting thing is that these cover versions vary enormously in how they approach the song.
OK, back to the original, written by Kenny Jones and Ben Yardley, recorded in 1968 by Reparata and the Delrons:
It's an amazing thing, all made up of seemingly unrelated bits of other songs stuck together (this seems to be something of a Kenny Jones trademark, but more on that later) with weird sound effects (foghorns, radar blips, etc.), rapid changes in tempo, almost anything, and yet it all seems to hold together as a song. Certainly it's a product of its time. The Reparata version was a top 20 hit in the UK but didn't do much business elsewhere.
However, since then it seems to have taken on a life of its own. The number of cover versions is bewildering. Some are relatively straight covers (e.g. the version by Bette Bright & The Illuminations), some totally rework the arrangement (e.g. the Ratpack version) and the rest fall somewhere in between. If you listened to all the cover versions of this song, the songs based on it and the songs that sample it, it would...er, take quite a long time. I know of about fifty but I'd be willing to put my life on there being at least that many again.
Maybe one day I'll try to make sense of the whole thing, particularly regarding the role of Kenny Young, who has been involved in so much pop stuff from the last fifty years (and remains active), but that'll have to be another time, because at the moment...
..the version that interests me is this one, by the 1970s band Fox, although assembled at some point in the 1980s (1986 is the best guess that I can find):
The reason I'm interested in this version is because Kenny Jones (the co-writer of the original song) was in the band Fox and I say "assembled" because I'm convinced most of the vocals and instrumentation were recorded when Fox were active (probably sometime in the mid-1970s). But the Fox version of the song, as released, has such an obvious 1980s influence with all its synth stabs and stuff that it can only have been put together in that decade.
The latest possible point at which this version could have been released is 1986, as it featured on a Fox "greatest hits" album released that year.
Now I can't possibly be the only person that noticed that at 1:12 (and repeatedly elsewhere - the example at 2:31 is probably the most obvious) there's a stabby synth riff that was never in the original song, but still fits. Thing is, it's the identical riff that forms the entire basis of 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready For This", released in 1991:
It's slowed down a little bit and has a slightly different cadence, but essentially it's the exact same riff.
And it set me to wondering, in today's climate of high-profile music plagiarism lawsuits (think Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke/Pharrell etc.) I wonder if Kenny Jones (and any associates involved in the Fox version) could make anything of this?
(The Kim Carnes version from 1981 is the hit version and the one that most people will know; I think it's the definitive version, too, although the original by Jackie DeShannon is really interesting for other reasons, of which more later).
I've thought about this song an uncommon amount of times this year, for some reason (there was a cover version by Kylie on the radio a few months back for some charity thing, I think that might have been the initial reminder). Not that a reason is needed, it's a fantastic song. Anyway, the aforementioned line - "she got...Greta Garbo stand up thighs, she got Bette Davis eyes" has been one of my favourites out of all Pop for ages now and it turns out that I've misheard it all along. It'll just have to be my favourite mondegreen from now on.
The actual line is "She's got Greta Garbo's standoff sighs, She's got Bette Davis eyes", according to all the lyric sites and listening to the song again, I'm not sure how I've misheard it all these years. Coincidentally, I heard the Jackie DeShannon version earlier this year and it turns out there's another line - "She's precocious, and she knows just, What it takes to make a pro blush" - that has changed from the original, too ("what it takes to make a crow blush" as originally written, must either have been mistranscribed or deliberately changed when Kim Carnes came to record her version).
As the song has a lot of great lines, I wondered if there were any other changes from the original. So, to YouTube!
Here's the original version, written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, performed by Jackie DeShannon in 1974 (brace yourself if you've not heard this before, it's musically very different to the Kim Carnes version, although fans of polka piano are in for a treat):
Jackie DeShannon definitely sings "Greta Garbo's standoff sighs" too. Damnit. Sorry Jackie, I think my line is better.
As for the "what it takes to make a crow blush", on consulting the authority that is Wikipedia, it's an old American midwest saying that may not have been familiar to whoever arranged the Kim Carnes version. I don't think I buy that story, I think it's much more likely that it was deliberately changed.
I say that because I'd've done the same. The original line, although I'd not heard it before, does make sense in the way these folk sayings do; it will be hard to tell if a crow is blushing, because it is already jet black (well, that's my interpretation). But in the context of the song - "she's pure as New York snow", "she'll tease you", "she'll unease you", "she's precocious", and so on - "what it takes to make a pro blush" is more apt. It fits the atmosphere of the song better.
I think Kim Carnes voice lends "make a pro blush" a real earthiness and I reckon that was why it was changed; it sounded better and would make perfect sense to listeners.
It's all around a great job as cover versions go. It's recognisably the same song, but the arrangement is so radically different that it's virtually a rewrite (Bill Kuomo, who wrote and played that distinctive synth line on the Kim Carnes version, should have got a part songwriter credit if you ask me). It's the very exemplar of how to do a cover version. Well done Kim! (and all others involved etc. etc.)
What other covers are out there, I wonder? Well, there's the afore-noted Kylie version:
A perfectly workable hi-NRG version, but it's obviously a cover of the Kim Carnes arrangement (including the distinctive synth line). Also to be noted: Kylie seems to have be inhaling helium in parts of this song. Hey, I'm not judging, just sayin'.
Taylor Swift does a version (to be honest, I think Taylor Swift can do anything if she wants to - it'll turn out she's some sort of superpowered alien or something):
Here she is doing a live version (well, that's what the audio is, dunno what significance the still picture has) and it is of course another cover of the Kim Carnes version. Someone must've gone back to the original, surely?
But what's this? HOLD THE PHONE! Alvin and the Chipmunks do a cover:
Well, that was as awful as expected. What was the fucking point of that, Alvin? That was just a straight speeded-up version of the Kim Carnes arrangement with even sillier voices than on the Kylie one. It actually sounds a bit sordid and creepy, especially Alvin's singing on the last few fading lines.
Seems there's someone called Dean Ray. Yeah, news to me. Anyway, he was on the Australian X-Factor and he looks a bit "rock" (black leather jacket, rock hair, plays own guitar). I wonder what his take on the song will be?
Oh. He just does the synth bit on acoustic guitar. Some unnecessary vocalising. Actually this might be even creepier than the Chipmunks' version.
There's loads more covers; Brandon Flowers has been doing it at gigs for ages and there's seemingly a never-ending stream of self-recorded sensitive acoustic people that I've never heard of having a go at it. But hang on...
...Gwyneth Paltrow does a version??
Actually that wasn't bad. Nothing new in terms of adding to the (Kim Carnes) arrangement, but a decent enough vocal. I can't tell if her mis-timing the first line is deliberate or not, maybe that was part of the performance (in whatever film this was) or maybe she genuinely did just start half a beat too early.
Seems nobody uses the Jackie DeShannon arrangement at all now, though, which is a bit of a shame. Even the piano covers are covers of the Kim Carnes arrangement. Well, apart from this one, I don't think it's based on anything in either arrangement:
That's called the Aphex Twin approach to cover versions, I think.
Anyway, enough of Bette Davis and her eyes for now. It's made a nice change to write about something light. Yeah, gonna do some more stuff like this. Don't worry, you don't have to read it.
