The Power of the Remix

Last Saturday I went to see Tom Lanoye’s Sprakeloos (‘Speechless’) – adapted from the novel for theatre – in which he tells the tale of his mother’s stroke, subsequent aphasia and slow demise. And although I’m not that big a fan of the cliché, I’m willing to make this one exception: I was speechless. I’m not going to go into ornate descriptions of his baroque style with its grandiose verbiage and courageous syntax; Lanoye does the real thing much better than I can describe it. Still speechless, so it seems.

However, Lanoye’s monologue also reminded me that at times when we are at a loss for words, we can turn to music to express what lies between the unsaid and the unsayable. Somewhere towards then end of the show Lanoye had some photographs of his mother projected on stage and the theatre room basked in the unspeakable melancholy of music. Afterwards I found out through my friend M (thanks for the invite by the way!) that the song in question was a remix of Dinah Washington’s This bitter earth by Max Richter who fused it with his On the nature of daylight for the movie Shutter Island:

You can listen to the original song by 50s blues singer Dinah Washington (1924-1963) here and read all about it here, but I must confess: I like the remix better. Perhaps because the strings are more bitter or more likely because Richter’s version will always remind me of Lanoye’s words. But still.

And that got me thinking: there are actually quite a few songs where I like a remix or cover version better than the original. I purposely didn’t Google this as I’m writing it, but here’s a couple that I can think of immediately:

Ryan Adams - Wonderwall (original by Oasis)

The Baseballs - Umbrella (original by Rihanna)

James Blake - Limit to your love (original by Feist) (sorry N, I know you won’t agree!)

But above all, I’m curious, my dear Freddies: what’s your favourite remix or cover song? Do tell!