It is hard to do a cover of a brilliant song and make it your own. I'm thinking "All Along The Watch Tower" where Dylan started performing it like Hendrix, or when Trent Reznor said that "Hurt" no longer belonged to him because Johnny Cash made it his own. (An amazing cover, by the way, and Reznor was right. I can't hear his version any more, all I can hear is Johnny Cash's version.)
Well, I think this does it. First of all, I love the Oasis version. It reminds me of 1995, and how that song just blew up in the US. I remember singing it outside the White House on my way back from the Delta Gamma formal at 1 in the morning. (I seem to remember one of the girls in the group yelling for Bill to come outside, and seeing the Secret Service guy move to get a better shot if she decided to jump the fence. Good times.)
It's got a great opening guitar to it, and owes a lot of influence to the Beatles (like all of Oasis' music does). Liam's voice carries it, and the movement of the strings really brings out the melancholy of the song. It's a great song, and rightfully thought of as a proper sample of Brit Pop music from the 90s. To be honest, it's not the best song off their second album, "(What's the Story) Mourning Glory?" but it is probably their most famous. (The best song off that album is "Don't Look Back in Anger". Their best song of all time is "Live Forever" but that's another blog post.) It's been covered by tons of people, including an easy listening cover that actually got to number 2 on the British pop lists.
This was the song that really brought them out to America. Everyone was talking about Oasis, and then following it up with "Don't Look Back In Anger" cemented them as the biggest band in the world. Strangely enough, they then just fell apart. Watch the movie Live Forever and see how bad it got. Right now the brothers are in two separate bands and don't even talk to each other. Liam didn't show up for a gig that was being taped, but sat in the balcony and heckled Noel. That's some demented stuff right there.
Now, onto the Ryan Adams cover. It is available on the album Love is Hell. It's completely acoustic guitar with an organ and piano, and timing on the phrasing gets changed, which changes the whole context of the song. It goes from a somewhat melancholy song to one of want and need. It's filled with emotion, befitting his voice. Adams just hits this out of the park. The song, the phrasing, and the way it ends are so good you think this is the way it was supposed to be sung. Apparently Oasis did as well, as they sometimes changed the way it was sung to fit how Adams sang it. When the original changes their song to fit your cover version, you know you've done something right.
Ryan Adams should be much better known that he is. Sadly he's going deaf, and broke up his band The Cardinals. Heck, he should get a mention just for writing "Stars Go Blue." He's had some demons in his life, but he's married to Mandy Moore now, and writing books as well as releasing new material, so hopefully people catch on. Listen to both versions of this song, as it's brilliant, but I think I like Adams' version best.
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