Tom: Forever Young, again?
Tim: Weird coincidence: yesterday I was trying to think of my favourite cover song to submit for a work playlist, and naturally my mind briefly went to One Direction, and then I ended up listening to the Interactive version, and (for a few seconds at least) the German rap version; later on, I found out that Boy In Space has just released his own version – which doesn’t sound anything like you’ll expect it to.
Tim: Forever Young’s a difficult one, really – it’s been covered so often that you’d imagine it’d be hard for anyone to do anything new with it, and yet pleasingly Mr Space here seems to have managed it.
Tom: It’s not a song that I’d have expected to become a standard, certainly. “Perish like a fading horse” continues to be an incredibly clunky lyric. It’s the power of a good chorus, I guess.
And you’re right that he’s done something new, although that something new appears to be “having almost zero percussion whatsoever”.
Tim: We’ve a lovely dreamy sound to it that I don’t know of having been done before, even though it suits the song really really well – it’s got a relaxed tone that gives the song a more reflective note, a sort of ‘sitting in a field contemplating what it might actually be like’ vibe, and that really works for me.
There are bits I’m not keen on, mind – the vocal shift in the chorus comes as a bit of a shock, and while the constant build through the second verse and chorus is lovely, it’s frustrating that it leads to absolutely nothing.
Tom: Yep, that’s my big complaint. It’s the lack of percussion: it implies strongly that at some point the drums are going to kick in, possibly even with a Phil Collins-style, In-The-Air-Tonight triumphant drop, but… no. This is just the style.
Tim: But for the feeling it brings, and for the interpretation, I do like it.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: there’s just no contest.
Tom: Yes, there is.