My original of the week this week is JJ Cale's Cocaine. I think this was one of the more shocking original discoveries for me personally. I know that Eric Clapton is the king of popularizing covers but this one I really thought was his. What's even more noteworthy is the uncanny similarity in sounds. Not always, but usually, covers take at least a bit of a new spin on the track but in this scenario, the two sound almost identical. Cale released "Cocaine" in 1976 and Clapton released his cover in 1980. The cover brought some well-deserved attention to JJ Cale who was virtually under the radar until then.
Interestingly, Clapton believes the song actually has a well hidden anti-drug message and not the contrary.
"It's no good to write a deliberate anti-drug song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous—that on study or on reflection actually can be seen to be "anti"—which the song "Cocaine" is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought ... from a distance ... or as it goes by ... it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But actually, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine."
—Eric Clapton
Happy listening :)
MF
P.S. The 1976 J.J. Cale album Troubador is on my "Top 25 Albums of All Time" list so if you aren't familiar with it, I'd definitely recommend a listen.
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