Covers, standards, call them what you will, have always been part and parcel of the music scene, a way for bands to cut their teeth, explore classic sounds, and celebrate the music of their peers. That said, I feel that there are some songs that shouldn’t be attempted. Not because it would be sacrilegious to try; I just don’t see how they could be improved.
And even within The Rolling Stones’ back catalog, there are a few that fall into that category, “Wild Horses” being one and “Dead Flowers” being the other. But now that I cast my mind back, it seems that both have been attempted and rerecorded to great success – the former by UK indie-popsters The Sundays, the latter by none other than Townes Van Zant, which was, in turn, featured in the cult movie classic, The Big Lebowski.
Long story short, having played “Dead Flowers” live at LebowskiFest (I didn’t even know that was a thing) Afton Wolfe and Jaimee Harris decided to take the song into the studio and this is the result. And if the Jagger/Richards original is a groovesome and rocking affair, here, they reimagined it as a cool and understated ballad, not a million miles away from the pace and demeanor of the aforementioned “Wild Horses” and certainly close to Van Zant’s filmic finale.
This spaciousness and graceful nature of this rendition creates the perfect backdrop for the two voices to work together so beautifully, opposites that are so attractive, and just the cascading of shimmering, picked guitar, deft and delicate piano, Dayna Bee and Daniel Seymour’s subtle stings, and a whole lot of emotion. Admittedly, those emotions are mainly connected to sadness and pathos, but as a smarter man than I once said, sad songs say so much!
So true!
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