David Bowie Cover of the Week: Nick Stephenson performs “Cygnet Committee”
At first glance, this YouTube video is of the “a guy in a room” variety, which, in fact it is. But what makes it stand out is the burning passion and absolute mastery Nick Stephenson brings to his performance of this relatively obscure song off the Space Oddity album. The arrangement is similar if not identical to Bowie’s original and the instrumentation is stripped down to Stephenson’s guitar, but he does so much with those tools, which he puts into the service of the emotion behind every word in his delivery to make this a knock-out.
What makes this more impressive, at least for me, is Bowie’s “Cygnet Committee” was a refutation of the 60’s hippie counterculture. The song’s original context is hardly relevant coming from a performer who appears not to have been alive during the 1960s (if I’m wrong about that, I want whatever that guy’s eating for breakfast). But if anything, he seems angrier about whoever or whatever he has in mind as he’s singing.
Reading too much into it, what I think Stephenson is doing here is taking the song out of the 60’s and really expanding its reach to cover inane devotion of thoughtless ideology as expressed in cliches and slogans rather than considered thought. It’s about the hypocrisy of the committed, rather than the hypocrisy of the flower children per se. That works.
Or, maybe Stephenson just liked the song and put his all into performing it. That works, too. It is well worth hearing and my choice for “cover of the week.”
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As always, this wasn’t the only notable Bowie cover released this past week. Below are a few others. Click on the bolded song title to link to the video.
Where Are We Now? by Party Tyme. A solid rendition of this seriously under-appreciated late-Bowie song. This was Bowie’s unexpected comeback release in 2013, but since then I think it’s been overshadowed by Blackstar. Nonethless, it is a beautiful song that is worthy of revisitations, such as this. I’m not quite sure what Party Tyme is— a band? A service? A series? I don’t know, but I liked this cover.
Heroes (Epic Cover) by EpicSongsUSA. And what exactly is this? What is EpicSongsUSA? Whatever else it is, it’s the second act in a row that is a bit of as mystery to me. Well, I’m not sure what exactly I’m encountering here, but the cover is kinda like the Avengers singing the song that Bowie put in quotes to convey something like irony. This version is not ironic.
Hallo Spaceboy (This Chaos Is Killing Me) by Marc Lowe. New video that makes use of archival clips of Bowie by friend-of-the-blog Marc Lowe. I’m going to feature more videos by Marc throughout the week leading up to his interview, which will post on Saturday. Meanwhile, check this one out.