As a nice companion piece to yesterday’s live album, today we have a random cut from an album of covers.
I feel the same way about covers albums that I do about live albums. They’re generally not worth my time. I do enjoy covers performed in concert or tucked into an album of originals, but releasing a full-length covers album strikes me as lazy.
As with live albums, these are usually recorded in order to fulfill a contract. Lyle Lovett might be the worst offender. He released a few albums in a row dominated by covers in order to shake loose from his contract. He even titled the final one Release Me.
Annie Lennox’s Medusa was not a contractual obligation. It followed her first solo ablum, Diva, and joined it in achieving multi-platinum status. Many critics trashed the album for offering up watered-down adult contemporary versions of classic rock songs.
I like Lennox’s voice too much to hold much against her. Sure, the recordings on this album are stately and safe, but they sound great. Her take on Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is no exception.
turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale
She said, ‘There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see.’
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well’ve been closed
Meet Me In Montauk 
Ditto all you have said.
I recently heard Billy Joel perform this live at his Sirius XM Town Hall meeting. He did a decent rendition.
Meanwhile to quote Billy Crystal: “What does this song mean? All my life, I never knew what this song meant?”
I have always liked her voice and she certainly sounds lovely in this song even if we don’t know what it means 🙂