Music: or how my mind works.

I have quite the strange taste in music. Basically I like everything. True, I’m not a big fan of gangsta hiphop. But even some of those I like. The interesting bit about me is that I often hear the potential of a song. The song may be utter crap but to me –in my mind’s eye- I see a diamond in the rough.
 

So, for instance, the song ‘Worthless’ from the movie A brave little toaster. Now, this isn’t the best song ever (nor is it the best cartoon ever). But somehow, to me, if they change the lyrics, bring it down to one voice and put in some extra strings and variations, I can see this song take flight.

The best way to understand how I listen to music is by describing a scene from the movie Begin Again. In this movie Mark Ruffalo is a talentscout/ music producer. And he’s just been fired because he, basically, lost his touch. So there he is in a bar drowning his misery when, up on stage, a shy female singer-songwriter played by keira knightley begins one of her songs

This girl is shy beyond believe. She even requested for the lights to be turned off on stage because she really doesn’t want anybody to see or hear her.

So everybody in the bar is talking right through her performance except of course Mark. He listens, he watches and from that moment on you-the viewer- dives into his mind and imagination. He suddenly sees the girl rising herself up full of confidence. The lights go on. Her cords on the guitar are harder. He voice changes from a mumble to full out vocals. Behind her drums and strings start to play. In his minds-eye he sees the potential of the song. And the viewer is treated to great popsong.

So the rest of the movie concerns him trying to convince her to become a professional artist. And, trust me, all will be well in the end.*

So this is how I listen to music. If a song is utter crap but somehow there is a little gem hidden in the mess I’ll be waiting for some professional artist to make a cover of the song. Which brings me to ‘Forever young’ from Alphaville.

This isn’t the best song in the world anymore. The lyrics are still great and all, but the eighties synthesizer and that high-pitched voice that was all the rage back then damages the song terribly. So, for years, I’ve been looking for somebody to cover this song. A band called youthgroup did it. But that wasn’t a great version either. Dune did it – a great happy hardcore version- but now suddenly stripped of any sense of ballad. And then One direction covered it.

I don’t know enough about this band to have any kind of opinion of them. But I do know that they brought forth a nice version. Not what I really wanted, but a step in the right direction at least. True, the song is suddenly cut into five singing parts. But that’s what you get when a boyband sings a song.

But a fun consequence of this was that all kinds of youtube-girls in the confides of their bedrooms started to cover this One direction hit in front of their webcam. 

True, it is a bit annoying when somebody sais that they are going to cover a song from One direction oblivious to the fact that it was already a cover, but that’s just me.

The point is, some of these versions were actually rather nice. One girl made a reasonably clear Beyoncé version of it. Another went at it with a Nirvana grudge hammer. So now, after years I finally got a lot of ‘Forever young’ covers to chose from. None of them are perfect (I prefer a male voice to sing this song) but darn it if they aren’t close.

* Fun fact: In the movie Mark Ruffelo’s character has a daughter played by Hailee Steinfeld. During one of the recording sessions her father asks he to join in on the electric guitar whilst he plays (if memory serves) the saxophone. So a bit of a family project.

Then, during one of the other recording sessions, Mark's character asks a group of random streetkids if they want to join in on the recording as background singers. One of those kids is Mark Ruffalo’s real-life son. So another bit of a family project.

I know it is completely useless information, but fun to know.