Hello. In the past few weeks I’ve been giving myself a bit of whiplash from trying to read Bryan Washington’s Lot alongside Stephanie Meyer’s Midnight Sun and haven’t formed many cohesive ideas as a result. But: Taylor Swift’s re-recorded version of Fearless drops tonight, and in that vein, I thought it’d be fun to write about some song covers that revisit their source material and transform it in a memorable way. Yes, two of the items on this list are originally Taylor Swift songs. Judge me all you want, but Fearless was the first album I bought with my own allowance (Target’s Deluxe edition, baby!) and you can pry it out of my cold dead hands.
Betty, Cabeau
Cabeau’s cover of Betty (off Taylor Swift’s 2020 folklore) is like if Taylor Swift rebranded herself and decided to appear at Vans Warped Tour. In Cabeau’s hands, the crooning apology song becomes a pop-punk anthem, the would you tell me to go fuck myself twisted a bit rawer and harder. It reminds me of 2014, when my 13-year-old sister was on the cusp of her screamo phase, and I went with her to the AT&T Center as a chaperone. We were there to see ONE OK ROCK, who were big in Japan but not so well known in the U.S. Their set lasted less than 15 minutes, and to make the tickets we’d paid for worthwhile, my sister and I spent the rest of the day picking random acts to line up for. We Are the In Crowd. Cute is What We Aim For. Echosmith I recognized for “Cool Kids,” and I knew one song by Mayday Parade—“Kids In Love”—which they did not play. At one point, a tall guy with dyed-blue hair and an eyebrow piercing stepped sideways into us and apologized, and me whose only concert experience prior to that had been Lady Antebellum at the Rodeo thought: we are not the in crowd. But you know what? I went home and hit the repeat button enough times that the YouTube algorithm started serving me suggestions like Stereo Skyline and Artist vs. Poet and now seven years later, this version of Betty unlocks some sort of core memory in me, one tied to ripped jeans and skateboards and dodgeball fights between all the kids on my street. Cabeau’s Betty is for listening to when it’s 100 degrees outside and the air smells like runny plastic because the San Antonio sun is baking the Slip ‘N Slide you set up, and there’s a barbecue later, and everyone’s mad at the one kid who ran inside to tattletale on whoever pushed him during flag tag. Ah, youth.
Tim McGraw, Maggie Rogers:
I don’t know anything about music theory or writing about music. All I know is that Maggie Rogers shifted this Taylor Swift song into a minor key and added a thrumming synth in the background and that changed everything for me. Lyrically, Swift’s song was already haunting, the remembrance of a summer’s love and the ache that comes with folding it away, just another keepsake of the past, but the slight crest of Maggie’s lilt carries it differently. Taylor’s version lands heavy on the last syllables of each line of the chorus; Maggie, meanwhile, blurs the lines together, so that it feels like the swell of a wave. If what I wrote on Cabeau’s version of Betty is about halcyon summer days, Maggie Rogers’ Tim McGraw is about thick summer nights, the muggy humidity you carry in your chest, the moon heavy and bright behind the darkness of trees, fireflies that wink out too soon.
The District Sleeps Alone, Birdy
For the sake of this entry, I limited myself to one Birdy cover, but just know that her version of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” and her rendition of “Young Blood” by The Naked and Famous are also in my heavy rotation. The original song by The Postal Service is backed by hazy electronic beats and riffs, making for a slightly futuristic sound. There’s a lot of texture to it; it feels like being inserted into a funky video game. It is a break-up song for if you are into vaporwave and also maybe Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I say this to mean that even though it’s sad, there’s an escape valve of sorts through how much sonic fun it’s having. Meanwhile, when I bought Birdy’s cover of this in 2012 I’m pretty sure it straight up gave me depression. Birdy keeps the metronome-beat of a drum in the background and layers in a piano, then relies on her voice to carry the rest of it. And it is absolutely devastating. This was the Oh god I am so lonely before Mitski got her hands on it in “Nobody” and wrote My God, I’m so lonely. Every line feels like Birdy is taking a blunt instrument to my chest. I am a visitor here / I am not permanent. I’ve only ever walked D.C. at night while accompanied by other people, but this song is what I imagine standing alone in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at 1 AM feels like, the desolate catharsis of seeing your face in the water and realizing that you will always be stuck with your choices. (And I am finally seeing / why I was the one worth leaving—literally who allows a song to end like that— )
Say My Name, Hozier:
There are all those tumblr text posts about how Hozier is secretly a forest creature and like. Shakes fist at this cover. Why does his voice sound like a twig in the most heartbreaking way. Why do I feel like crying and then being decomposed by moss? The original by Destiny’s Child is the callout anthem you blast on repeat; those women already know the game’s up, and the whole “say my name” refrain is a challenge, a dare. They’re just waiting to be proven right; from their delivery you know they’re ready to walk. Hozier’s version, meanwhile, is plaintive. Say my name because if you do you might just convince me nothing’s up. Say my name and maybe this really will be all in my head. I do not know how this man makes nearly everything he sings sound like a prayer, but this cover is like that Hail Mary you mumble to a God you’re not sure is listening. Like, who told Hozier he could beg the way he does at 4:09? Also, major props to the backing choir during this whole thing.
Let’s Get Married, Mitski:
The very first time I heard this cover, I accidentally opened it in two tabs, so that I was hearing them loop against each other while slightly out of sync, and it created a very out-of-body experience. Jack Antonoff, of Bleachers, says that he wrote this song the morning after the 2016 election, and the fingerprints are there in lines like “I know it’s bad when we look out / but bad, bad people don’t live in our house.” I love the original for going big and bold as a joyous anthem—a house that holds the world, so to speak, marriage as the metaphor for what it means to invest in love, and community, to double down on caring and caretaking. Mitski’s version is more intimate in its scope, perhaps the size of a cocoon. It feels like tucking the covers around someone. It makes me want to put on a vinyl record and dance against the flicker of low candlelight in a room that smells like vanilla and fall catastrophically in love with a person I know is going to be with me for the rest of my life. Yes I will take all my medicine and contribute to my 401K and make healthy dietary choices because I am in it for the long haul, baby!
Thanks for reading! While you’re here - check out my friend Andrew’s banger writing on some bangers as well as this substack if you are looking for other ~music opinions~
‘Til next time. <3