Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Temptation
(NB: I am writing this from one of the iMacs in the office, having smuggled the MP3 of today's entry in via an ingenious little memory stick that came with the laptop)
Normally, were I to do a WES on a song called 'Temptation', you'd be correct to guess that I was writing about New Order's immortal single of the same name, the version of which that appeared on the Substance compilation being perhaps my favorite song. Ever. Definitely the best thing they've done, and I don't say that lightly. I've been told that the original 12" version was even better, which I'm sure is a possibility, but in either case it's the same song. A debatable point, but I'm not going to go into that here.
So what, you may ask, usurps enough of my affection to have me write about it instead? The last time some stylus people and myself were debating the merits of various versions of 'Temptation' when someone (I'm tempted to say Andrew Unterberger, but I could be wrong) let me know that apparantly Kid606 had done a version for some obscure 12".
Ten minutes later, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I heard it. And it is full on beautiful. The guitar line that introduces the original after Bernard Sumner's "oohs" subside is replaced by a warmly fuzzy sound that slowly phases into existence; eventually a glassy keyboard part takes over what would have been the vocal melody. Around 3 1/2 minutes in (this version scales the song down to six minutes from seven), a new noise, one that occasionally scales upwards, stopping just short of pain like a feedback whine, appears and echos in the background. Percussion clicks and burbles in the background. At around 5 1/2 minutes, the song gives up on trying to emulate the song explicitly, the glassy sound shatters softly into fragments of light, and the song sighs its way out of this world.
The sonics are wonderful, of course, but that alone would not have been enough to so swiftly endear this version of the track to my heart. Part of it is the fact that it's (presumably) Kid606 - an artist I both like and respect - and to hear him displaying such love for a song I also feel so strongly about is heartening. But mostly it's the subtle shift in feeling from the original 'Temptation'.
The original is, for me, a shout of joy (some of the lyrics notwithstanding). Listen to Sumner sing
Oh, you've got green eyes
Oh, you've got blue eyes
Oh, you've got grey eyes
And I've never seen anyone quite like you before
No, I've never met anyone quite like you before
and try to deny that it's a love song. The Kid's version is still basically the same but with wordless cries in place of vocals it takes on a more melancholy, bittersweet air. If the original is a song to hear on a train taking you to meet someone, the landscape speeding by just out of reach, then this version is you on the same train going in the opposite direction, speeding away again. Preparing yourself for the wait before you can see them again.
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Normally, were I to do a WES on a song called 'Temptation', you'd be correct to guess that I was writing about New Order's immortal single of the same name, the version of which that appeared on the Substance compilation being perhaps my favorite song. Ever. Definitely the best thing they've done, and I don't say that lightly. I've been told that the original 12" version was even better, which I'm sure is a possibility, but in either case it's the same song. A debatable point, but I'm not going to go into that here.
So what, you may ask, usurps enough of my affection to have me write about it instead? The last time some stylus people and myself were debating the merits of various versions of 'Temptation' when someone (I'm tempted to say Andrew Unterberger, but I could be wrong) let me know that apparantly Kid606 had done a version for some obscure 12".
Ten minutes later, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I heard it. And it is full on beautiful. The guitar line that introduces the original after Bernard Sumner's "oohs" subside is replaced by a warmly fuzzy sound that slowly phases into existence; eventually a glassy keyboard part takes over what would have been the vocal melody. Around 3 1/2 minutes in (this version scales the song down to six minutes from seven), a new noise, one that occasionally scales upwards, stopping just short of pain like a feedback whine, appears and echos in the background. Percussion clicks and burbles in the background. At around 5 1/2 minutes, the song gives up on trying to emulate the song explicitly, the glassy sound shatters softly into fragments of light, and the song sighs its way out of this world.
The sonics are wonderful, of course, but that alone would not have been enough to so swiftly endear this version of the track to my heart. Part of it is the fact that it's (presumably) Kid606 - an artist I both like and respect - and to hear him displaying such love for a song I also feel so strongly about is heartening. But mostly it's the subtle shift in feeling from the original 'Temptation'.
The original is, for me, a shout of joy (some of the lyrics notwithstanding). Listen to Sumner sing
Oh, you've got green eyes
Oh, you've got blue eyes
Oh, you've got grey eyes
And I've never seen anyone quite like you before
No, I've never met anyone quite like you before
and try to deny that it's a love song. The Kid's version is still basically the same but with wordless cries in place of vocals it takes on a more melancholy, bittersweet air. If the original is a song to hear on a train taking you to meet someone, the landscape speeding by just out of reach, then this version is you on the same train going in the opposite direction, speeding away again. Preparing yourself for the wait before you can see them again.
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