A while back I blogged about Bobby Freeman's rather nice if somewhat underwhelming version of "Do You Want to Dance". Though successful at the time, this original would eventually become overshadowed by the fuller and more upbeat recording by The Beach Boys which opened their seminal 1965 album Today!. I used that review mainly as a excuse to dump on YouTubers and their silly, clickbaity 'Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers' lists. What has since occurred to me is something that music influencers have largely steered clear of up until now: 'Songs You Didn't Know That Have Superior Covers'. I was going to provide a list of examples but I couldn't think of any so I'm just going to go into the present single and a little-known rendition of that I think surpasses it.
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The Singing
There's no shame in not being able to match Sinéad O'Connor. The late Irish vocalist was a generational talent, one who effortlessly made covers all her own. For all I know, some of her singles that aren't "Nothing Compares 2 U" like "Troy" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" might as well be covers as well; it's ultimately irrelevant just what she did or didn't write herself. For her part, Bobbie Gentry is a terrific singer as well though she doesn't come close. Still, her rather flippant interpretation isn't the way I'd choose to go with it.
Winner: Sinead
The Mood
O'Connor famously handed in her contribution to the WarChild charity album Help at the last minute but the compilers were so affected by it that they just had to make room. Considering that some of the others involved farted out fresh versions of previously recorded material or uninspired covers, she put a lot of effort in, sparing no expense on having a haunting flute part and a full band joining her. (I looked it up and she wasn't even working on anything else at the time; her previous album Universal Mother was already a year old and a follow-up wouldn't emerge for another five years) There's even the sound of a baby crying in the background at one point. I know that people dig the rawness of Gentry's recording but there's no escaping the fact that the O'Connor version is how it was always meant to sound.
Winner: Sinead
The Narrative
I mean, it's the same for the most part. O'Connor's cover dispenses with the "frog down the blouse" verse but it isn't as though its missed. I suppose there's the subtext of the Brother's involvement and how he and Billie Joe had been a pair of mischievous friends — and it sort of hints that he too knows more than he's letting on (more on that below).
Winner: A slight edge to Bobbie
The Experience
Gentry is a Southerner. This means that she's more likely to be a MAGA nutjob nowadays but it also means that she had a lifetime of Baptist repression and smalltown folk spreading rumours to lend itself to her great composition "Ode to Billie Joe". She didn't necessarily have to have lived the gut-wrenching world of the characters in this song but she was clearly qualified to know how they'd react — and, in some cases, not react — to this type of situation. for all of O'Connor's gravitas, her telling is more like reportage than recalling an experience she lived through.
Winner: Bobbie
The Bias
Aka 'My Bias'. I own precisely as many albums by Sinéad O'Connor as I do Bobbie Gentry. That's right, zero. I may write like a Sinead fanboy but I don't really have a dog in this fight beyond my preference for the '95 remake. But it's also the one I'm most familiar with, having been listening to it since the day I bought it. Gentry's original wasn't something I encountered much as a lad and it isn't the kind of sixties' classic that I seek out aside from when I'm doing this review.
Winner: Sinead (but I would say that, wouldn't I?)
The Vagueries
In truth, this is the only category in which Gentry's original has the upper hand on O'Connor's cover — and that's only if you buy the idea that "Ode to Billie Joe" is meant to be vague. Apparently, the secret pregnancy/infanticide/suicide plot was one of many being discussed back in the sixties. Billie Joe might have been gay and she was the only one who knew. Or the two of them had been planning to elope. The object they were seen throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge might have been a wedding ring or maybe it was drugs. Now, it could be might familiarity with O'Connor's version but I call bullshit on all of this. It's about an unwanted baby that they did away with and old Billie Joe was too guilt ridden to live with what they had done, end of story.
To be fair, there is one aspect of this that Gentry's recording captures. While the Father is an out-to-lunch old drunk, the Mother, Brother and "nice young preacher" Brother Taylor all know she's involved in this. None spell it out but they all seem aware that that girl has been up to something with Billie Joe. O'Connor's reading makes it seem like just idle gossip but the way Gentry delivers it, there's this ineffable feeling that virtually everyone involved has some idea of what's going on.
Winner: I refuse to acknowledge that this song is meant to be vague but if I have to choose...Bobbie.
The Verdict
I like Sinéad O'Connor's cover version much more than Bobbie Gentry's renowned original. It's more interesting, it sounds better and it makes me want to listen to it again. Nothing against its predecessor though, even if I can't quite get past how much I'd rather be listening to a little-known rendition of it that popped up on a fairly obscure British charity album.
Score: 8
Unofficial Score for Sinéad's Version: 10
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