So Very Young Again

Bullion “Say Goodbye To What”

I knew from the start that this track sampled Klaus Nomi, but it took me a while before I figured out the main vocal sample. As it turns out, it is a section of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “The Bells,” a song penned by Leonard Cohen and later rewritten and recorded as “Take This Longing” on his album New Skin for an Old Ceremony.

Two interesting things about that:

* When Cohen revised the song, he omitted the sections that are sampled in this piece, i.e., the catchy bits. Fair enough — Cohen is really more of a poet than a pop songwriter, but I prefer the catchy bits, thanks.

* I had assumed that whatever voice I was hearing in “Say Goodbye To What” was in some way processed and altered. Well, no, not really — Sainte-Marie actually sings “The Bells” as if her voice naturally ran through some kind of tremolo effects box.

“Say Goodbye To What” does not transform its component parts, but the shift in context and shape is dramatic enough to completely change the character of the Cohen/Sainte-Marie snippet. There’s still a bit of melancholy to the melody, but the brittle sound is traded for a colorful, bouncy psychedelia that owes something to virtually everyone who has ever tried to make their own Magical Mystery Tour. Sainte-Marie is recast as a groovy cosmic spirit, now totally on the same wavelength of Nomi, the campy space diva. It’s cute, it’s hooky, it’s a counterintuitive connection that makes perfect sense.

Buy it from Bullion.