Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 15 - July '21

Jul 15

You can enjoy the Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 15 playlist in its entirety on Spotify. Just click on the included Spotify plugin.

Playlist Highlight: Creep, Vega (by way of Radiohead)

Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think most cover songs are very good. The worst experiences involving them are when someone you know hits you with a, “hey, check out this sick cover” and it’s a terribly performed version of a classic song that a concert-goer recorded with their cracked iPhone 4 and then proceeded to upload the resulting low quality mp4 to YouTube. Your torturer then stares directly at your face for the entirety of the performance, just to ensure that you smile and nod at the appropriate junctures of the amateur footage. Not only are you not interested in the song, band, or the strenuous effort of having to pretend to enjoy the eternally long five minute runtime, the video itself - in all its shaky cam glory - leaves you more nauseous than that time you went on a Whale Watching Tour in the turbulent waters off Puget Sound on a 8 foot dinghy that was captained by some guy named “Bubba.” It’s awful. Just awful.

Perhaps I take bad covers personally because of an experience I had in college. It was freshman year and I was crammed into a set of tiny adjoining dorm rooms with three other guys. Hand on the Bible, the square footage of the place was somewhere between a Guantanamo Bay prison cell and a studio apartment on the Upper East Side.

As you can imagine, I spent as much time outside as I could - if only to get a regular supply of fresh oxygen. However, this approach wasn’t always possible and was highly dependent on the seasons and capriciousness of the weather. When the unforgiving and sweltering heat mugged every inch of my skin or the occasional brisk winter evening overpowered me, I retreated inside and would kill time by roaming the three floors of my residence hall just for fun.

Well it usually was fun, so long as I didn’t cross paths with Water. My roommates and I gave this fellow student and neighbor the nickname Water, for reasons I will dive into shortly, but as to what his actual name was, I, to this very day, could not tell you. He was tall, quite tall actually, rail thin, and had hair that was long, dark, and parted, causing it to drape over his face like curtains, which, as far as I was concerned, was equally as an unfortunate haircut at the time as it was as when Professor Snape originated the look. He had long arms that hung down his sides curiously low, which gave the marauding sense of something non-Vitruvian about him.

I would give him a polite nod and courteous smile whenever our paths crossed in the hall, stairwell, or common room - at least at first - but that all changed one afternoon when I left my dormitory with my roommate and we performed the weekday trudge to one of our afternoon classes. There were five dormitory buildings on campus, each built with Soviet-style precision and blandness, and in the very middle of them all sat an open patch of grass that housed a large granite garden fountain. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the man, which would in short order be known as Water, sitting on the rim of the fountain, but he was not alone. In his hands was an acoustic guitar and right next to him was a fellow co-ed, staring mesmerized and adoringly up at him. He was (poorly) strumming and singing to her a rendition of “Yellow” by Coldplay.

The scene triggered a sudden flashback. I had seen the very same man with the very same guitar at that very same fountain playing the very same song only a few days before, but at that particular time, he was serenading a completely different girl. The nerve!

Pointing this out to my roommate, he agreed that he was “one of those guys.” The type that had gone out and bought a guitar for the sole purpose of seducing woman, and had only bothered to learn just one solitary song. Rather than his performance being a genuine attempt to confess his feelings and admirations toward a specific romantic interest , the instrument became weaponized insincerity. His performances were rolled off an assembly line, soulless and indiscriminately.

“I wonder what he would do if she asked him to give Yellow a break for a while and requested that he play something he wrote himself,” I mused.

My roommate, noticing where all of his encounters seem to take place, suggested that he would just melodically sing, “Water…Oh oh water. Wa-ah-ah-ter.”

We laughed in unison and a nickname was born.

Over time, I’ve developed some rules of thumb when considering what makes a good cover song. If you’re thinking that the only qualification is simply, “If you like listening to it” then I’m afraid to inform you that you haven’t given this enough neurotic thought, which graciously, I have take the time to do for you.

First, I think a good cover isn’t an impersonation; it needs to bring something new to the table without taking anything off. Some covers deviate so wildly from the original that it’s hardly recognizable, while others are mere carbon copies of the initial version - which makes one wonder why it even needs to exist at all.

I’m also skeptical of acoustic covers. Just because Nirvana can elevate other’s work by unplugging, doesn’t mean that a stripped down version is a worthwhile pursuit. More often than not, it comes off as low effort and boring.

While we’re being picky, I also have an idiosyncratic preference for the pronouns used to remain the same and not flip just because the song is covered by an artist of a different gender than the original vocalist. I just don’t think the original lyrics should be touched, just like I don’t believe old black and white movies need to be “colorized” or old novels be reedited.

Lastly, I don’t really consider it a cover when the dominant version of the song is the cover itself. Hendrix’s version of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” or Buckley’s iteration on Cohen’s “Hallelujah” are such examples.

So Water, if you’re still out there covering songs in attempts to seduce scores of women in your feeble attempt at being a troubadour - and happen to be reading this article - consider the above. And while you’re at it, just know I think you’re a creep; I think you’re a weirdo.

What is Planted and Enchanted?

If you’re anything like me, you surely have a “junk drawer” somewhere in your home. It probably consists of an old flashlight with dead batteries in it, a handful of rubber bands alongside some pens running low on ink, enough loose keys for you to qualify as a middle school janitor, some birthday cards given to you years ago (how quickly can I throw these away without it being rude? Better wait another decade just to be safe.), the box to your old iPhone simply because it’s a pretty darn cool box, and a small library of service manuals for among other things: your refrigerator, hot water heater, and that Instant Pot you used just the one time.

I don’t consider my junk drawer “worthless” mind you, but rather see it a collection of delightful discoveries (Hey! I didn’t know I had a yo-yo!), and delightful rediscoveries (So that’s where my playing cards were!).

That’s my aim for this playlist series: Planted and Enchanted. A monthly track list consisting of songs that likely won’t fit perfectly together in a classic album sense, but are useful in planting the seeds of discovery of new genres, artists, and songs as well as the unearthing of music you loved but had long since forgotten about. Who knows, there may even be a hidden theme or two that the savvy listener can piece together. The best part about this playlist? If you don’t like it, that’s okay. We’re talking about junk after all.

If you have a specific song that you’ve recently discovered or come to love, we’d love to hear from you. Just email us at freshcutfinds@gmail.com. We’re planning to roll out more content and a new playlist series in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Each month, we put together a playlist of our favorite discoveries new & old. Each playlist will be about the length of a mix CD (80 mins) and will be sent around the 15th of each month. Subscribe with your email address to receive the monthly Planted and Enchanted playlist, plus other occasional speciaty playlists.

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Evan Hammonds

Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 15 - July '21

Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 16- October '21

Unearthed Vol. 16