4.13.2011

Delta Maid :: "Under Cover Of Darkness" [Strokes Cover]

I can't say much for Delta Maid other than to regurgitate some press blurbs about how she is small in stature, from Liverpool and generally writes country music. Her cover of most recent Strokes' single, "Under Cover Of Darkness" proves a crushing reimagination of the original. Reducing the arrangement down to acoustic guitar and a few, well-placed harmonies, the melody of the original emerges as a long goodbye, the notations more playful and the lyrics more fully heartbroken. Casablancas' 1000-yard stare sings through the lips of this girl from England, her voice shifting gears easily as they sing "So long my friend and adversary, I'll wait for you." It sucks the air out of the room. Maybe this proves the power of melody, or the malleability of the form and function of rock music, like this emotional Swiss Army knife equally useful for cutting bark or filing your nails. Or maybe it proves that a girl in Liverpool can deliver and relieve so much pain through words of a sad, lanky guy on the Lower East Side.

1 comment:

BradIsMyHomeboy said...

I don't know, i give the song a giant, "muh." Whether it's 'cause covering a song that's less than three months old seems, well, not worth covering, or like a desperate attempt to have "delta maid" show up next to "strokes" on a google, i'm not quite sure. The voice, however, is more than intriguing. Like someone took the best parts of Jewel's range--the saccharine sweet, top range, and excluded the strained, awkward man-ish(?) range--and focused it into a laser. Pow pow.