I Think It’s Strange You Never Knew

I don't normally like to post twice in one day, but I am officially disturbed.

Back in 2000 - 2001, VH-1 had a pretty neat show called Bands On The Run. I admit I was addicted. Shitty local bands competed against each other to see who could rock the hardest in different cities, who could get the love of judges and audiences, and who could sell the most swag. The winner got a chance at being a shitty national band, complete with a recording contract, enough Benjamins for a bomb-ass video and the promise that VH-1 would put it into heavy rotation (meaning it would be featured in the one hour of videos they played each day between 4:00 and 5:00 am). It was interesting to watch, simply because the producers framed the show as a competition between a feel-good band with a can-do attitude and killer work ethic (who everyone hated) and a band of ne'er-do-wells who sobered up before shows just long enough to get drunk again. Magnificent. Of course, the drunks won.

What was really fun to watch were the different challenges the producers invented for the bands to do along the way. The best was the cover song competition. Each band had to learn a new cover song and incorporate it into their set. The drunks, a Texas outfit named Flickerstick, put together a cover of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You that was actually a little touching, if not overly earnest and borderline Creedish in its intensity. Pretty cool.

I now have at least two more covers of that song by various indie rockers (Doveman and a DJ Z-Trip remix of Run Run Run’s version), and I must ask the question: how many more times will this song be covered? Come to think of it, I recall that even Wakeland did a cover of this one back in the day. And in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that Fade Into You was one of the very first songs that I learned on bass, guitar and vocals.

Why?

For whatever reason, this song is like some kind of local whore that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, ends up visiting at some time or another. But in a good way.

Perhaps it is the vagueness of the song that makes it is so accessible and open to reinterpretation that it is a natural fit for indie rockers and fans, even 14 years on. I don’t hear covers of Smells Like Teen Spirit, Cannonball, or The Sweater Song, and I find it strange that I don’t wonder why those songs never got reheated for our listening pleasure. It just wouldn’t make any sense.

So why do I have three versions of “Fade Into You on my iPod?” Any thoughts?