the song
The Beatles:john insists on using his damn harmonica. george takes the lead. i quite like george's vocals, actually, and wish he was featured more often in beatles songs! it's about the same speed as the cookies version, but something about it seems a bit pokey. more of a stroll than a strut, which doesn't seem appropriate for a song about the CHAINS of LOVE, does it?
VS.
The Cookies:
slinky, shoulder-shaking, saxophone-featuring. dorothy jones, earl-jean mccrea and margaret ross in the second cookies line-up of '61-'67. the handclaps are fantastic. i love the simple way that jones draws out her vowels in the verse. brings to mind "the look" from lauren bacall -- demure and restrained, but also suggestive of a kind of worldliness.
VS.
Carole King:
the original songwriter, carole king, records her composition herself -- for an album of recordings of her own songs, co-written with her partner gerry goffin -- in 1980. accordingly, it suffers from that 1980 production, which grates to modern ears; yesterday's hi-tech computerized compression sounds miserable and tacky today. it's also way too fast, as if she wanted to just record this real quick and get it over with already. dig beneath the production, though, and you'll find king's buttery voice buttering up her lyrics nicely.
WINNER: THE COOKIES
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the ripples
Erasure - Chains of Love1988 -- a change in the dynamic -- erasure promises that "together, we'll break the chains of love"! very fun music video; high theatrics, with a nice color palette! this is almost at the opposite end of the spectrum from the beatles version of the king song: polished and throbbing, no jangly guitar, nothing at all close to a harmonica. not better or worse, but a different flavor altogether.
