SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-“She Drives Me Crazy” (2011).
Sharon Van Etten (man, she is everyhwere!) went to the AV Club studios and did a cover of The Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy.”
The first time I heard the Fine Young Cannibals song was on MTV. There was pretty loud guitar and then Roland Gift walked up to the screen and sing in a prposterous falsetto. And I laughed really hard because I thought it was some kind of joke. Over the years I’ve grown to really like the song. I also really like Sharon Van Etten, who sounds nothing like Roland Gift.
This cover demolishes the oirginal. Van Etten makes it her own–slowing it down outrageously. She makes it twangy and more creepy sounding. And obviouly, she removes those big crashing guitars and sharp angles of the original. There’s some backing vocalists (and a full band) so the song had breadth. And it is fairly recognizable once you can follow the lyrics (it’s much slower, so it takes a good 45 seconds before you fully recognize the song. But it is so very different.
I enjoy the original more, bit this is a cool interpretation.
[READ: July 20, 2011] “Where I Learned to Read”
I don’t know who Scibona is. As such, I’m wasn’t sure how interested I was in his past. I mean, did I really need to care about him in this piece (by that token, should I really care about any of the authors in the Starting Out series?).
Anyhow, it’s an interesting introduction to the author. This story talks of how Scibona deliberately tried to fail out of school. He was happily making $3.85/hr at KFC and new he could get transferred anywhere in the country to another KFC. It would be an easy way to travel. So who cared about school. Who cared about reading?
Well, he did, actually. As long as it wasn’t assigned, he very happily read everything he could get his hands on. But then senior year, a girl showed him a brochure for St. John’s College which offered a Great Books program. It was just reading. Reaing great books. Not books about Aristitle, but by Aristitle. And it was in New Mexico. He was hooked.
I can’t imagine how he got into the progrqam given his junior year grades, but he did. And it was there that he learned to read. For real.
For a reader like myself its an inspirational story.
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