The Song Sometimes Remains The Same

OK, now I know my iPod is screwing with me.  I have it on ‘shuffle everything’ mode, and it just played All I Really Want To Do by Bob Dylan (from the 1968 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan), immediately followed by World Party’s version of the same song (from the 1986 album Private Revolution). [Out of interest, Dylan does it better…]

Now, I know there is a 1-in-7,807 chance of this happening – small but plausible – so I could accept it, but yesterday it played The Mission’s version of Like A Hurricane (from The First Chapter, 1987) followed Neil Young’s original (from Decade, 1977). [Here, I’d have to give it to The Mission]. Coincidence? I think not.

That said, being able to play different versions of a song back-to back without having to get off the sofa and swap CDs is kind of neat. In fact, if you go through iPod’s Songs list and select the first instance of a song it will happily work through every song with the same name for you. But note that this may not be the same song. Breakdown by Grace Jones (from Warm Leatherette, 1980) may be a cover of Breakdown by Tom Petty (I have it on Pack Up The Plantation, 1985) [and the androgynous Ms. Jones wins hands-down], but it’s definitely not the same as Breakdown by Guns ‘n’ Roses (Use Your Illusion II, 1991) or the Breakdown by Suede (Suede, 1993).

Also, be warned that playing several versions of the same song isn’t necessarily a good thing – especially when they are all by the same artist. When we were putting together the Torchum Never Stops books, Reinhard (the man with the plan) did mix tapes of every version of (appropriately) The Torture Never Stops by Frank Zappa he had (and there were dozens – I only have seven on my iPod, and that’s more than enough!). Collating 500-page books by hand to the same song for hours at a time really was torture. It even got to Reinhard, and he eventually sold his entire Zappa collection, vowing to never listen to Zappa again! Even today you can freak him out by sneaking up behind him and whispering “Flies all green an’ buzzin’…” in his ear…