One Song You Should Hear: "I Want You To Want Me - The Holmes Brothers
Chills...
A hallmark of a great song often can be found in cover versions - when that version takes the song and changes it dramatically. Whether its the key, tempo, sometimes a bit of the melody, sometimes the results can be interesting, fun, and, in the case of today’s song, downright beautiful.
“I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick is a near-perfect power-pop song, and the band themselves have done different versions. You know the up-tempo hit from the radio, but when it was originally released on their amazing second album, In Color, it had a completely different feel and sound - more of a 1930s ragtime sort of thing.
There’s been some cool covers of “I Want You To Want Me” by Dwight Yoakam and I particularly love how Chris Isaak does it. And there’s gospel group The Holmes Brothers’ version. Is it possible to improve a nearly already perfect song? They did, by slowing it down, and just putting some beautiful, heartfelt, sheer emotion into it.
Gives me chills, every time.