Another Human Interest Story

Beauty Pill “Tattooed Love Boys”

This is one of the most inventive covers I’ve heard in ages. Chad Clark keeps the core of The Pretenders’ song while completely reimagining its arrangement, starting with trading out the original’s incessant nervous shake for a more graceful but dazed tone. He keeps James Honeyman-Scott’s chimey lead guitar part, but whereas the original only foregrounds it towards the end, the Beauty Pill centers it. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason this cover exists is because Clark just wanted to explore the possibilities of that melodic motif.) The tension and clatter of the source material is in this version, but it comes out sounding more sparkly and lovely, and Clark’s vocal comes across as sort of wistful and reflective. That’s the key thing, really – even though Chrissie Hynde’s lyrics were always in the past tense, the music made the awkward and scary moments she was describing feel very urgent and present tense. Clark embraces that past tense, sounding a lot more nostalgic than shaken.

Buy it from Bandcamp.