When it comes to cover versions, slower versions of the original are usually the best.
They don’t always work but, sometimes, they can make you appreciate the lyrics even more.
There’s a version of You’re The One That I Want by Julia Stone which is picking up a lot of attention.
Her voice is haunting, and her version gives you a whole new feeling about the song, rather than the upbeat, poppy version that we’re all used to bopping along to.
Now I have a deep fondness for Grease. It was the first film I went to see without my parents. I was seven and OK, I was with my aunt. It wasn’t the most rebellious thing I ever did but it was a rite of passage for me.
I had the LP (good ol’ vinyl, folks) which I played over and over again until I’d driven my parents to distraction, and years later it was a firm favourite to sit and watch with all my girly mates.
But despite that album being on a permanent loop, I never quite worked out the words to one section and it was only this week when I was listening to Julia Stone’s version that I learned what I should have been singing.
It goes like this:
Boy: I better shape up, ’cause you need a man
Girl: I need a man who can keep me satisfied.
Boy: I better shape up if I’m gonna prove
Girl: You better prove that my faith is justified.
Now, those last few lines, I always thought the boy was singing that he had to “improve” and then the girl sang back, “You’d better impro-oove, if my baby’s just as fied.”
I know, it makes no sense, but I hadn’t a clue what they were singing about, and never bothered to find out. When it was rolled out at every wedding or birthday party, I’d jump around to the mega-mix and still shout out the wrong words at the top of my voice. I was convinced nobody else knew the right words either.
Mind you, I’m not the only one. My other half is still convinced that in La Isla Bonita, by Madonna, she sings about a man with eyes like potatoes.
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