First Listen
At first contact with the percussion, and the joining interjection of the brass, which peaks both the ears and simultaneously sets those small, sensitively little hairs on one’s arm bolt upright is thus it sounds amazing.
More so, one might dare and say: it sounds real, and oh so incredibly human.
In fact, let the imagination run wild, which is no doubt an easy task when listening to a rendition of a classic such as this. What comes to mind – almost like a reel found immaculate and untouched – is a slew of black and white memories, drenched in both the immortal noir and sought-after grit from the mid to late 60s. Images in motion of iconic figures like Sam Cooke and James Brown, or nameless carbon copies, leaning against their classic cars in their crisp suits.
Their hair a testament, their poses timely. Their instruments, even, are finely tuned to just the right pitch of nostalgia that carries you off to a place in this cover’s genre that you were never there for, or alive to even witness.
Yet it harkens as if you were.
And most of all, the audible idea of their voices – starting at 0:18 – coming in like the rolling of a clear, tenor strike of thunder. They meld into one for the first verse, and then separate and become their own at the sudden arrival of back-up vocals around the middle of the track.
It maintains such a strong, lively semblance of realized and morbid curiosity, and acceptance of it, as is originally intended for a song like ‘Change’.
And yet…
And yet –
Melding into the familiarity and astonishment of it all… is a growing sense of eeriness; a fretting over what exactly you’re hearing, which, despite its efforts to comfort by way of its tributing style, is a phenomenon that is more akin to turning on a switch, and a machine coming almost instantly to life. As opposed to a very human soul, wrecked by toxic obsession, and from thence unleashing like a great stream of formerly kept-in thoughts a wailing river of intrusive and dangerous dialogue.
What is even more dangerous – the difference between the two is now creeping its way into clarity, now that the first round of the track is coming to a fade-out close.
Either to shake this feeling that now hangs low and heavy, or to be sure that what you heard is in fact not human at all, but a product of what the product itself believes to be the sound humans make, you set it back to rewind… and play it again.
Second Listen
A seasoned ear, and a veteran palette of all things late jazz and early soul, could begin to identify in this second round a trace of actual influence in the voice singing.
Which, reminder, is not only no one in particular, but rather, everyone all at once.
At first, such just sounded like a well-loved impersonation; a crooning and yet well-practiced throat and chords that trained itself to dip, trill, and project just as one other voice can; to a tee.
Then, in hitting a high note, another artist – solely specific in their reach for it – is heard, instead of what – or who – was there before. One moment, Jackie Wilson and his combo of barreled tenor and belting baritone. The next, Solomon Burke with his certain vibrato that flutters like the wings of a hurried bird.
And all amidst it, the actual absorption of the lyrics. They have been heard before, countless times, even before this cover. Perhaps even in several other versions.
But none like this; none that do not seek to be genuine, while at the same time accomplishing just that to a somewhat scary degree.
How it can do either can be heard, more so than observed, as the visuals aforementioned – those belonging to an era of cultural significance as well as suffering.
Those two blare like sirens: cultural significance and suffering.
The latter blaring the loudest: suffering.
To those who are practically kin with the song itself, there is no trace of suffering within the lyrics of ‘Change’.
Rather, it is splattered all about with a deep setting essence of gory psychopathy.
One need only read the lyrics in their entirety, or in this instance, listen to them through the conveniently clear and obstruction-less vocals of the humanoid at the helm.
–
‘I took you home,
Set you on the glass,
I pulled off your wings,
Then I laughed…’
–
To have such a medium as soul – and the especially raw strain that was then dispensed of it back in the late 60’s, at that – portray something so unhinged as Chino Moreno’s dialogue belonging to that of a serial killer, is perhaps to one who tries with all their might to not like what they’re hearing, a tad deaf to its original tone.
But eventually, in unclenching the stubborn fist, loosening the bound jaw, and lessening the idea of cotton in their ears for just a second, they’ll find within the allure of the track’s style a discombobulation that is just as criminally fascinating as a crime scene photo, found in the papers befitting the yesteryears that we as listeners currently hear.
Only, this crime scene is not so much a reckless mess, or even a quiet and unsettling still life of the aftermath hours later.
In fact, the body is fashioned as performance art.
And the blood shed from those pulled wings – brush strokes, done in the style of Charles Alston.
Third Listen
It is not noise, but a presence now, distant and yet all encompassing as you find yourself singing along to this refurbished version made to be vintage.
Continuing to listen to it must insinuate, then, a relinquishing of bias and acceptance of sorts. That being said, it is to be accepted that this rendition of ‘Change’ is, after all, pretty good all things considered.
However, such may not be entirely the case.
Rather, from the third round onward, it’s more or less a gradual understanding that rises to the surface at the pace of something emerging from the deep waters of cold indifference.
That cold sheds to a warmth that threatens to get too close to a hot point. Not yet boiling, but enough to make you twitch.
And you may very well do so, at the sound of this version of ‘Change’. Because there swells the understanding that something like this rendition can be done so easily now.
Without the need for that pesky human interference, and its innate need to connect to something that not only sounds like it has lived, but cries of it by way of song.
Well… Here we have a song.
And it sounds very human.
Precisely, in fact, how one outside of humanity would mimic what we sound like.
And it is spot on.
To the point where it, on our most lucid of days, may even be frightening, in that we cannot tell the difference.
Because in the end, it just sounds that good.