Going Undercover

In July I released ‘The Undercover EP’, an EP of my covers of some of my favourite songs. I wanted to explain a bit about which tracks are on there, and why. Choosing songs to cover is a tricky task. You have to love the songs, but it isn’t the same process as picking your desert island discs. The criteria aren’t the same.  The songs have got to feel good on you, sound good in your voice, be something you can sing with feeling and authenticity. But, crucially, you’ve also got to feel that you can bring something new to them, or bring something out of them that maybe people haven’t noticed before. It’s a collaboration with the original artist and their work, a melding of their story and yours. It’s like shining your light onto a box of jewels; your light, being distinct to you, might hit the jewels at a different angle, making some small detail of a sapphire sparkle brighter. Despite it always having been there, someone looking might think, oh, I hadn’t noticed how blue that was before.

I remember my mum talking to me about this song when I was little. She said that it isn’t up to women to stop men from cheating, or something to that effect. Basically pointing out to me how problematic the lyrics are from a feminist perspective. I totally agree and think it’s cool that she had that perspective on a classic way before feminism got cool again. Nonetheless, like everyone else, I’ve always loved the song. For ages I wouldn’t sing it, except at home, but I hope that by slowing it down I’ve brought out the pathos of the woman singing to Jolene. How sad that women are made to feel so competitive with each other, and so helpless in their own relationships. Maybe the difference between being a woman then and being a woman now is that feminism has set us free from so many stereotypes and myths intellectually, but the attack on the self-esteem of women throughout many centuries lingers underneath our skins. Maybe the narrator in 2018 knows that she shouldn’t be playing into the women-as-competitors trope, but just can’t help it.

We used to play this in the car when we were little. It reminds me to be grateful for the beauty of the world around us. It’s one of my mum’s favourite songs, and I learned it to sing for the occasional concert I do in Care Homes. I love the string arrangement that Tom Moore has written for it. It’s melancholic and summery at the same time; a combination I really love.