aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
#024– Electrelane – ‚I’m On Fire’ (Too Pure Records ’03)
Hello friends,
in order to add some fuel to a (yet) non-existent fire: to me, Bruce Springsteen always was rather adjustable at will. The bulk of his songs are a bit wishy-washy, pathetic and kitschy: patriotic lyrics combined with ‘authentic’ behaviour, tunes to clap along to by and large. The thing is – and I’ve never understood why this is – “The Boss” has always been loved despite of this (or should that read because of this?), whereas other stadium acts like U2, Coldplay or others always got criticized for the very same thing. Strange, isn’t it?
Still, there are two Springsteen-songs, which I am quite fond of. I have to add though: they mean nothing to me in their original versions, perhaps simply because my abomination of Springsteen overrules anything else, who knows? But when covered, at least when covered in the way they were covered respectively, the songs are just brilliant! The first one is Ballboy’s rendition of ‘Born In The USA’, to be found on their 2003 album ‘The Sash My Father Wore And Other Stories’ (which I recommend without any reservation at all, by the way). Never released as a single though, which is a pity, because if it were, it would have featured here, to be sure!
And the other tune is, obviously, today’s choice: Electrelane’s version of ‘I’m On Fire’. Now, the reason I was rambling about my relation to “The Boss” (you see: there is no respect whatsoever, that’s why I use inverted commas all the time when typing “The Boss”!) so much is, to be absolutely frank to you, there isn’t anything at all I know about Electrelane. Well, nothing beyond the fact that they came from Brighton, that their first album (from 2001) was a bit difficult (rather instrumental, which is never easy), but apparently, after having gone through some personal changes, things improved.
At least so much so that in 2003 they were able to give ‘I’m On Fire’ a real good kicking – which is exactly what this tune needed, if you ask me! Obviously the vocals have to be held mostly responsible here, so hats off to Verity Susman for her brilliant job in turning something so goddamn awful in something so wonderful:
mp3: Electrelane – I’m On Fire
Take good care,
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
That’s alright, so it is. Hope they bought some shoes with the money.
The boss is a strange fish but I do like a couple of his songs Same goes for the folk who put the 2 after you. Same doesnt go for Coldplay obviously.
Good start to the day sl.
Personally feel putting Springsteen in the same camp as Coldplay/U2 is a bit of an odd one?
I’ve been a fan of The Boss since I was a kid. The first four albums are outstanding. Couple of so-so ones after and lost interest after ‘USA’, which is when he crossed over to irritating megastardom. But no one put on a show like Springsteen with the mighty E St. Band. Maybe I’m just an old American guy, but I love that old stuff and still listen to it.
Wow, I’d have never known it was the same song – cheers- its a much better version