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Dazed and Covered

Though record temperatures and heat indexes in areas of the South may make it seem inconceivable, there’s a savage reality settling into the collective student body consciousness across the country: the three-month party known as “summer break” is over. Fall semester is upon us now and with its arrival comes the inevitable look back at the summer bucket list as students attempt to reconcile their pre-vacation vision of the utopian summer with the reality of stale chips, lazy days and wasted nights. There’s a fine distinction between the “perfect” summer and the “ideal” summer, as perfection implies that goals were set and eventually met. Looking back, summer vacations are rarely perfect, sometimes ideal and nearly always regrettable in some form or fashion. In other words, a lot like most cover songs. I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about cover songs, probably stemming from my recent subscription to satellite radio. Where else can you hear 45 seconds of Jimmy Buffett covering Dave Matthews’ “Tripping Billies” while futilely scanning your car for a sharp object capable of immediately puncturing your eardrums?

Most covers are either relatively unassuming or just misguided, but I wanted to focus on those that were, in some respect, extraordinary (good and bad). I took my seat at the end of the bar here with a goal of not only putting cover songs in their place, but somehow placing them in the context of the ideal summer vacation. And, since the only ideal summer I can recall with absolute clarity is one that I watch annually on DVD, it seemed only natural to incorporate Richard Linklater’s seminal finger-to-the-authority, Dazed and Confused, into the mix. A stellar cast pairing then-unknown commodities Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Parker Posey with easily recallable dialogue, Dazed and Confused was both ahead of its time and a retread of such coming-of-age classics as American Graffiti and Animal House. It’s nostalgia through only the rosiest of lenses, and thus the perfect “cover film” to break down the categories of cover songs, as told by the inimitable Wooderson, O’Banion and the rest of the ’76 Lee High students …

O’Banion: “Ya’ll are an embarrassment to the sport of pool and you should be proud that I let you play … at my table.”

Unfortunately, we can all identify with this category of cover song. Upon hearing one, the only suitable reaction is a firm, “check please” to your bartender regardless of time of night, level of inebriation and prior level of enjoyment. The song in question is usually one you love when done right, but done here by an artist that really, truly seems to want to ruin your evening. Embarrassing, exasperating, utterly clueless ... just like the chumps O’Banion rolls on the pool table. Just thinking about a certain warbling troubadour I heard mangling both Nick Drake and “My Winding Wheel” by Ryan Adams in a Padre Island hotel bar has my blood boiling.

Wooderson: “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”

Wooderson’s appreciation of, um, eternal youth, is the most quoted line in the whole movie — and yet still really, really enjoyable even on the 1,083rd viewing. As far as song categories go, this is your classic audience aphrodisiac cover. It used to be “Freebird,” but these days — at least in Texas — the most obvious example might be Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner Blues.” If advanced sabermetrics were around to gauge frequency of play, I’d estimate that roughly 27-percent of all shows I saw in 2010 featured “White Freightliner Blues” in the setlist. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy pretty much every performance of it, right down to the mangled high notes.

Tony: “Ew, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I swore to God I’d never come to a Top Notch and here I am sorting through jalapeno burgers and soggy fries.”

These are your guilty pleasure covers. For instance, as unappealing as it sounds, you’d be hard-pressed to find a band that covers Danzig’s “Mother” in a way that’s off-putting to me. Similarly, at Roky Erickson’s Ice Cream Social a few years ago, a nu-wave synthpop band played Pulp’s “Common People” and, as much as I wanted to hate it, it was one of the highlights of the day. Did I hate myself for enjoying it more than the band’s original material? Absolutely. Do I remember any of the rest of their set? Not a note.

Wooderson: “Yeah, well, listen. You ought to ditch the two geeks you’re in the car with now and get in with us. But that’s alright, we’ll worry about that later. I will see you there. All right?”

Wooderson instantly became the most recognizable character in Dazed thanks to McConaughey’s virtuoso performance. Which leads us to the cover songs that are not only good live, but so transcendently brilliant that they’re just as enjoyable on album. My personal list would have a few obvious inclusions: Hendrix’s rendition of “All Along the Watchtower”; Ryan Adams version of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and recent cover of Iron Maiden’s “Wasted Years”; Gillian Welch’s cover of Radiohead’s “Black Star”; and pretty much any Johnny Cash cover during his comeback with Rick Rubin. Also included would be Elliott Smith’s version of Big Star’s “Thirteen” and Rodney Parker & the 50 Peso Reward’s version of Springsteen’s haunting “Atlantic City.” Okkervil River’s “John Allyn Smith Sails” and “Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas” also deserve a special place in this category for integrating unique verses in with the choruses of the Beach Boys “Sloop John B.” and Otis Redding’s “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” respectively. Sure, that bends the rules a tad, but as Wooderson wisely reminds us, “Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they’re gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin’ man, L-I-V-I-N.” Wooderson abides.