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Other People's Songs makes explicit the truth behind Erasure's entire
catalogue of campy gay pop songs. Every song on the new cover album
resonates with pop inspiration transformed into action. Not for nothing does
Erasure include a take on The Korgis' "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime."
"Change your heart / It will astound you," promises singer Andy Bell.
Of course, that is the great challenge of pop. It ain't easy. Knowing that - feeling it! - Erasure, best known for their '80s hits, consistently makes perfect pop music to keep you sailing (as on an "Ebb Tide") through a culture of daily drudgery, political perplexity, and soul-sucking cynicism. Erasure's Vince Clarke and Bell discover the ideal phrase to describe their art in the Cliff Eberhardt-scribed "Goodnight": "Wide awake but still dreaming." Wide awake, Erasure relates to and expands pop emotion by connecting it to gay experience. But still dreaming, Erasure does this without irony. They aim higher for absolute emotional sincerity without commoditization (as satirized on the last track, a clover cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star"). The lullaby-cum-prayer of "Goodnight" is offered by one lover to another, who is absent. The gesture extends to a singer addressing his audience - a spiritual suture as AIDS-era poignant as it is philosophically pithy. "Goodnight" exemplifies Bell's high-resolution androgynous voice. On that track, his torch-song vocalization recalls the husky-voiced Alison Moyet (Clarke's Yaz partner) - revealing and reveling in pop complexity. On others, Bell's voice signifies a variety of life experience, yet always distinctly gay. Instead of the trenchant irony Morrissey brings to Elvis rock heritage, Bell's earnest emotionalism transforms "Can't Help Falling In Love" into a common-sense anti-homophobia declaration. He recognizes pop tutelage, and reveals gay maturity, on matters of heartbreak in the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" - doing both Brothers' parts suggests a lonely sing-along. On the slowed-down "True Love Ways," Bell does what he always does best, expressing emotional wonder: "Sometimes we'll sigh / Sometimes we'll cry."
Check out the title (also the song's refrain): The distinctly sexual physical response ("Come Up") to stimuli ("See Me") results in blessed emotion ("Make Me Smile"). Because Erasure validates gay feelings - engendered by pop and by life - the most striking line in the song gains new significance: "I know what faith is and what it's worth." The sentiment is mirrored in the cover of The Righteous Brothers' "Ebb Tide": "I can tell / I can feel / You are love / You are real." With Bell's wildly unencumbered camp wail, the song has a tidal pull that draws the listener to the dance floor. "Ebb Tide" catalogues physical gestures between lovers. In recognizing the genuine emotions behind them, the song describes these intimacies in terms of a sustained metaphor: "So I rush to your side / Like the on. . . coming tide." Continuing the techno experiments of post-"Pop!" Erasure, Clarke and Jones break down, by boogying down, the original's Phil-Spector wall of sound, allowing infinite points of imaginative recognition and dance responses - just like lovemaking. This marks a definite political act on the part of Erasure. Note how the gay artists liberate hetero pop by deftly playing the pronoun game. On "Everyday," Bell's love for a "her" comes "faster than a rollercoaster" - a vernacular (pop) metaphor if there ever was one. Bell's description of the perfect "him" on the undeniably infectious "Walking In the Rain" is backed up by a girl-group chorus - a pop convention that can support anyone's love ideal. Erasure glories in the ever-ambiguous pop "you" on "When Will I See You Again?" Adapting The Three Degrees smooth soul classic, Erasure shares a precious moment. On the track, AIDS-era coping and faith speaks to universal desires: "Will I have to wait forever? Will I have to suffer and cry the whole night through?" To answer those eternal questions, Erasure puts a gospel groove on Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" - the album's first single, a spiritually joyful must-own record. Erasure's cover defiantly dances through intense imagery of dehumanization and transcendence: "I was feeling part of the scenery / I walked right out of the machinery / My heart going boom boom boom." Erasure finds hope in the miraculous connection with pop. "Turning water into wine," they make other people's songs into their own. |
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Mostly, Bell smiles. And I defy anyone to do differently during the
vivacious cover of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel's "Come Up and See Me
(Make Me Smile)" - the best glam rock song this side of Roxy Music. The
track, with Clarke and producer Gareth Jones' witty sonic abstractions and
teasing pauses, carries the weight of a heavy word: "Semiotics" - the study
of cultural signs.