Cover Version: Bruce Springsteen's Dream Baby Dream, originally by Suicide + new HTRK one too

Right everyone is banging on about how it's been ten years since September 11 so I'm going to remember it by posting a cover of one of the greatest American songs ever written by a band called Suicide, if you think that is bad taste you haven't heard the song then. How I remember that day well, night it was in the middle of night when it happen in Australia and I was up watching TV and waiting for the doco about The Rumble in the Jungle with Muhammad Ali against George Foreman it's called When We Were Kings. It was just about to be shown and I don't normally wait for a TV show well, I normally never watch TV full stop but then all this really bad filmed stuff and reporters running about not really knowing what is happening started being shown in a very badly done news update but totally unbelievable scenes and I've never seen that footage again because maybe I've not gone looking for it but after a little while we just got the looped plane crashing, building falling and reporters started saying the same thing over and over.

I just wanted to see Muhammad Ali knocking out Foreman which off course it never came on but I went to bed and the world was changed forever. It is also my Dad's birthday today so it's supposed to be a bit of a celebration in my family, happy birthday Dad.

Anyway the greatest Suicide cover has to be by Bruce Springsteen. He and Suicide met for the first time at Power Station studios when Springsteen was recording The River and Suicide recording The Second Album in the late 70's and this cover was from Alan Vega 70th birthday limited edition EP series. "I've liked Suicide for a long time," Springsteen told Mojo in interview. "I met the guys late in the '70s in New York City, when we were in the studio at the same time. You know, if Elvis came back from the dead I think he would sound like Alan Vega. He gets a lot of emotional purity. I came across 'Dream Baby Dream' again because Michael Stipe included it on a compilation and I thought maybe I could do it." He's using only a looping organ figure with a little synthesizer to fill in the cracks, Springsteen keeps his arrangement of 'Dream Baby Dream' true to the spirit of the original.

I found this great video on YouTube which someone has made using the classic old silent film called Sunrise and somehow it's a prefect match. I've never seen the film but I know it's like one of the greatest film ever made.

If you don't know the top image is the front cover image for Bruce Springsteen's 10" vinyl which I wish I bought at the time. Anyway the cover image is by Edward Mapplethorpe who's the brother to Robert Mapplethorpe.

Plus a kind-off bonus track of this one which is really brand new cover version but I'm really lovin' it and is what reminded me of Bruce's. HTRK (pronounced Hate Rock) are from Melbourne and based in London and this is the B-side to the new single/song for the forthcoming album called Work (work, work) which is out very soon if not already out now.
Sweetheart (A. K. A. Love You) [Suicide Cover] by ghostly

OK, I'll get back to my 100 greatest Aussie albums next or it will never get done.

Killer Track: Blondin Makes An Omelette by Gareth Liddiard

Well, here's a quick one while I'm moving house. Looks like this is another thing to write about here on my blog so I guess to sum up this is a song which totally kills me. I've been listening to the album the last couple of weeks but this track has been around a bit longer now. Yes, it's a new track I'm calling a killer track but it's that amazing. This is the first track to be released and as well track one from his debut solo album by Gareth Liddiard from The Drones called Strange Tourist. This as a whole album leaves me unable to speak so I'm going to write a little about this song first but the album has already become a classic (so maybe another blog about it later.)

Charles Blondin was a French tightrope walker, born in 1824 and passing away in 1897 and became famous then in 1859 crossing the Niagara Falls but not just once, a number of times, always with different theatric variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying his manager on his back, he cooked and ate an omelet. At the top of the page is a photo from the Library of Congress of how he did that. They're very few photos of him around but this one shows him cooking on a tight rope.

So that is an explanation really about the title of this song but you'll have to figure out what the song is actually about because I've got to go and somehow fit the house in a cardboard box. I've found the song on this very cool thing called soundcloud and also included the full lyrics and video from youtube below.

Gareth Liddiard - Blondin Makes An Omelette by All Tomorrows Parties

Blondin Makes An Omelette lyrics:

It seems we're all in for a treat
Staring up, out of the street
And you can tell that Joe is really glad he came

Though downwind of him trails
A fog of alcohol
He fails
To do his best to be indifferent
All the same

'Cause there ain't no shaking the smell
Like there ain't no shaking the spell
As Blondin, Wirewalker
Braves the screams

Well, Joe is
Obvious impressed
Though he has something to confess
Above the sound of ten thousand creaking
Necks all craned

Joe says,
"Alone amongst the beasts and freaks
I dreamed of tightrope walking
While I tended Blondin's
Percherons and trailers

I'd see him
Training in the evening
There was no point trying to speak
You see, I doubted that he'd have
Time for the strangers

Who'd be there hoisting his big tents
Who'd be spying him from their naves
Staring down at them
Like batshit in a cave

Well, we hardly even met, but see
I worked for him, I thought I'd
Fill the space he left
But no, I was naive

Just another sideshow slow, I thought
He knew something I don't
But it would seem, all these Wirewalkers have
Is just the means to make you feel so bad

Man, no one
Cared for him at all
Until he crossed Niagara Falls
So you'd all feel
A little lower down the scale

And then his fame shot straight and fast
Right through a gloomy, narrow pass
He chanced through darkness, lightning storms
And into day

But I ain't here because he's tall
I'm only here to see him fall
If I get on the wagon now
It'll only be to run him down"

It seems we're
All in for a treat
Staring up out of the street

And you can smell that Joe's been drinking
On his breath

And then the clouds part overhead
And I make out a silhouette
As though I'm staring up through a trapdoor
And I'm waiting to be fed.

The brand new video directed by Jasmin Tarasin.

I'll be back soon after this house moving thing is over. I promise I'll countdown the rest of my favorite Nick Cave songs which will be the final 25 tracks.

Cheers.