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seedarklyxeroWelcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
It's time for another Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th century. We continue our February "Dark Valentine" theme with additional respect to Black History month since every cover featured was originally released by an artist of color. This b-side cover from a now defunct German synthpop duo was originally released as an R&B/pop duet in the fifties and is probably best know today from a certain scene in a 1980's film that dramatized an evolution of dance during the sixties:
Wolfsheim – Love is Strange (Mickey & Sylvia)
Mickey & Sylvia were the duo of guitar instructor Mickey Baker and one of his pupils, Sylvia Vanterpool (later Robinson) who had already been recording under the name "Little Sylvia." They released their single Love Is Strange in October 1956 and it became their first and only significant hit. The song itself was written by Bo Diddly (with credit to Jody Williams for the guitar riff) but due to issues with his label he published it under his wife's name, Ethel Smith. He was the first to record a lo-fi demo of the song earlier in 1956, but that recording does not appear to have been available to the commercial public until 2007 with the release of the hits and rarities compilation, I'm A Man / The Chess Masters, 1955-1958. It's notable that Mickey & Sylvia's flirtatious call and response conversation in the late half of the song was not part of Diddly's arrangement but it's unclear how much of that was their adaptation from the original writing. Their partnership didn't last and they were effectively disassembled by the time their full album Love Is Strange was released in 1965, collecting various singles and b-sides from the past decade.
The single would be included on the soundtrack of several films, though the most memorable of them is arguably the 1987 film Dirty Dancing where the banter portion of the song was acted out by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey during their amorous and playful dance lesson. The song has also been covered over fifty times, most before Diddly's version was released, making Mickey and Sylvia the principle inspiration for the larger percentage of them.
Wolfsheim, the German darkwave/synthpop duo comprised of Peter Hepnner and Markus Reinhardt, released Once In A Lifetime, the first single from their 1999
album, Spectators, in October 1998. The b-side featured their version of Love Is Strange, their second cover in four albums of original work. This cover was also included on a 2000 various artist compilation titled Cover Classics (Volume Two).
Their first released cover was of Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town by Mel Tillis, originally released on the 1993 various artists covers compilation Undercover Vol. I and found later on their 1995 compilation album 55578. Technically, they had previously done a German-language version of Enya's Boadicea in 1990, but some conflict between the duo prevented its release until 2014, nearly a decade after their break up.
It's not clear what inspired their cover of Love Is Strange, though perhaps it was a coy wink to their label at the time, Strange Ways. It also isn't certain if they were aware of Diddly's or Williams's contribution to the writing since they instead credited Smith (Diddly's spouse) and Baker on the single, which may have been correct from the publishing standpoint, if not entirely accurate.
Where the song originated with a twangy guitar pop sound, Wolfsheim approach it with a dark but still light-hearted electronic style, very much in keeping with that of the Spectators album. In place of the call-and-response conversation, they multi-track Heppner's vocals in a canon of the lyrics.
Is their version of Love Is Strange strange enough to love? You decide:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
SEEDARKLY SUNDAY DISCOVERIES 200TH ENTRY!
We wrap up our "Dark Valentine" theme with a Fourth Sunday Four X Four! We'll explore four additional covers of a previously featured track about a love spoiled by misdeed and that's not nearly all. ❣‿❣
Feel free to leave a comment about that or tell me what you think about today's cover!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 10 - Red Light District – No Ordinary Love (Sade)
Feb 03 - The Ðevil & The Uñiverse – What Time Is Love? (The KLF)
Jan 27 - The Purge - Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Jan 20 - Pain Station - Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
Jan 13 - Clayfeet - Creep (Radiohead)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
It's time for another Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th century. We continue our February "Dark Valentine" theme with additional respect to Black History month since every cover featured was originally released by an artist of color. This b-side cover from a now defunct German synthpop duo was originally released as an R&B/pop duet in the fifties and is probably best know today from a certain scene in a 1980's film that dramatized an evolution of dance during the sixties:
Wolfsheim – Love is Strange (Mickey & Sylvia)
Mickey & Sylvia were the duo of guitar instructor Mickey Baker and one of his pupils, Sylvia Vanterpool (later Robinson) who had already been recording under the name "Little Sylvia." They released their single Love Is Strange in October 1956 and it became their first and only significant hit. The song itself was written by Bo Diddly (with credit to Jody Williams for the guitar riff) but due to issues with his label he published it under his wife's name, Ethel Smith. He was the first to record a lo-fi demo of the song earlier in 1956, but that recording does not appear to have been available to the commercial public until 2007 with the release of the hits and rarities compilation, I'm A Man / The Chess Masters, 1955-1958. It's notable that Mickey & Sylvia's flirtatious call and response conversation in the late half of the song was not part of Diddly's arrangement but it's unclear how much of that was their adaptation from the original writing. Their partnership didn't last and they were effectively disassembled by the time their full album Love Is Strange was released in 1965, collecting various singles and b-sides from the past decade.
The single would be included on the soundtrack of several films, though the most memorable of them is arguably the 1987 film Dirty Dancing where the banter portion of the song was acted out by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey during their amorous and playful dance lesson. The song has also been covered over fifty times, most before Diddly's version was released, making Mickey and Sylvia the principle inspiration for the larger percentage of them.
Wolfsheim, the German darkwave/synthpop duo comprised of Peter Hepnner and Markus Reinhardt, released Once In A Lifetime, the first single from their 1999
album, Spectators, in October 1998. The b-side featured their version of Love Is Strange, their second cover in four albums of original work. This cover was also included on a 2000 various artist compilation titled Cover Classics (Volume Two).
Their first released cover was of Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town by Mel Tillis, originally released on the 1993 various artists covers compilation Undercover Vol. I and found later on their 1995 compilation album 55578. Technically, they had previously done a German-language version of Enya's Boadicea in 1990, but some conflict between the duo prevented its release until 2014, nearly a decade after their break up.
It's not clear what inspired their cover of Love Is Strange, though perhaps it was a coy wink to their label at the time, Strange Ways. It also isn't certain if they were aware of Diddly's or Williams's contribution to the writing since they instead credited Smith (Diddly's spouse) and Baker on the single, which may have been correct from the publishing standpoint, if not entirely accurate.
Where the song originated with a twangy guitar pop sound, Wolfsheim approach it with a dark but still light-hearted electronic style, very much in keeping with that of the Spectators album. In place of the call-and-response conversation, they multi-track Heppner's vocals in a canon of the lyrics.
Is their version of Love Is Strange strange enough to love? You decide:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
SEEDARKLY SUNDAY DISCOVERIES 200TH ENTRY!
We wrap up our "Dark Valentine" theme with a Fourth Sunday Four X Four! We'll explore four additional covers of a previously featured track about a love spoiled by misdeed and that's not nearly all. ❣‿❣
Feel free to leave a comment about that or tell me what you think about today's cover!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 10 - Red Light District – No Ordinary Love (Sade)
Feb 03 - The Ðevil & The Uñiverse – What Time Is Love? (The KLF)
Jan 27 - The Purge - Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Jan 20 - Pain Station - Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
Jan 13 - Clayfeet - Creep (Radiohead)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .