Today’s Indie: Call Me Maybe / Ben Howard (Carly Rae Jepson cover)
‘I wasn’t looking for this / but now you’re in my way’
The best covers have the ability to totally transform a song to the point where the new version could stand on its own in its own right if the other never existed in the first place. If I had not already heard Call Me Maybe maybe several hundred times (mostly due to my own volition) and had come across this Ben Howard song I would think it a somber, slow and beautiful portrayal of the emotional perils surrounding potentially unrequited love. Heart piercing strings, rushed, hushed vocals met with pointed pauses, steady guitar… quite the departure from the third place finisher of the 2007 Canadian Idol’s deliciously buttery powderpuff of a pop song.
Howard debuted the cover on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge this week, and I love the sincerity he delivers it with, with only a hint of a smirk during the chorus. No maybes. #indie/tory
theuntzandtheindie 
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