When you hear a familiar song, but something is wrong

Aug. 23—When I was in high school, the rock band Great White achieved a gold-certified single with its 1989 song "Once Bitten, Twice Shy."

At least, the teenaged me thought it was a Great White song. My father corrected me as the tune came on the radio in the car: "What are you talking about? This is the Rolling Stones."

As was the case about 95 percent of the time, he was wrong. It was Great White performing a cover of a hit from Ian Hunter's self-titled debut solo album, released in 1975. I prefer the Great White version because it's punchier and more aggressive.

While out and about in 2024, I hear far more cover songs than I did in 1989 — and that in itself doesn't bother me. My issue is that the covers tend to be muted, neutered versions of the originals. At a coffee shop recently, I heard the bass line of Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun" and looked forward to Christine McVie's soaring vocal in the pre-chorus.

But something was wrong. The bass line seemingly was emanating from a regular guitar, while the funky Lindsey Buckingham guitar intro was absent. Then the vocals began — wispy and lacking substance, resembling AI more than a woman's voice. Sadly, this was not an outlier experience; most familiar songs I hear in public now are covers like this, with the edges sanded away so they're passively palatable to the largest number of people possible.

Why is music the only art form in which this is prevalent? We're not subjected to remakes of, say, "Gone with the Wind" featuring Rhett Butler telling Scarlett O'Hara at the end, "Frankly, my dear, I just don't care." Before plays I've seen both here and in Farmington, directors have warned audiences, "Some of the sayings and sensibilities in this play have not aged well, but we've kept them." Usually the reason is that they're contractually required not to alter the playwright's work. Occasionally, it's simply because they don't want to whitewash history, to pretend the racism, sexism, even genocide of the past weren't as terrible as they were.

I often ask visual artists how they feel about their early works — whether they see them as snapshots of their early progression or want to update them incorporating the skills and wisdom they've acquired. For the vast majority, the former is the case.

I see music this way: Hearing the real version of "You Make Loving Fun" transports me to another time — not 1977, when I was 2, but 2017, when I saw Buckingham and McVie perform in Las Vegas, Nevada. That song was the highlight of an outstanding show. The cover version I endured wielded no such power.

Research into this good-songs-presented-as-baby-food phenomenon reveals a couple of sad realities. One is that it behooves little-known bands to record covers in the hope that listeners accidentally stumble across their versions, rather than the originals, on music-streaming services. The other: It's cheaper to pay an artist to cover, say, "Lola," than to pay the rights fees for the version created by The Kinks.

Unfortunately, the days of familiar songs stripped of all their interesting qualities seem here to stay. As a result, I bring my iPod classic and headphones anytime I shop for food, visit a coffee shop, or spend time in a public place where I lack sonic control. Yes, I use 20-year-old technology to combat a problem that has only proliferated in the past few years.

I've also come to fully understand the value and importance of silence — which Santa Fe offers in abundance, unless you're near Cerrillos Road. But that's a topic for another column.