Joan As Police Woman 11th

‘I began working on new covers ever since the release of the first covers album 11 years ago! I’ve been performing “Kiss” by Prince and my version of “Out of Time” by Blur throughout last year’s Joanthology Tour and finished the record as soon as I returned home this winter. Recreating existing songs is a gratifying creative challenge for me, especially with songs I adore. I start with the question ‘WHY, exactly, do I love this song’?  I take those elements and reform them, sometimes removing much of the remaining material to refocus them through new glasses. I re-harmonize the chords, radically change the feel or shift the hook or the phrasing to rebuild the composition. 

For “Spread” by Outkast, I invited my friend and musical genius Meshell Ndegeocello to recite André’s words and play bass as only she can. I beat boxed the drums, had Parker play live over the tracks and added the masterful trumpeter Cole Kamen-Green.

“Under Control” by The Strokes is my favorite song of theirs. I always heard it as classic R&B song dressed up as a Strokes song, so I just reframed it the way I heard it naturally and did my best Brian May guitar playing.

“Not The Way” is from Cass McCombs’ first EP. I’d listened to the song for years before I realized what the lyrics were and then just wanted to create a version of my own. The verse describes being judgmental and difficult which leads to the blithe chorus “That’s not the way to make friends”. Effortlessly humorous without being funny. 

“Keep Forgetting” by Michael McDonald is a song that lyrically tears me up. It felt like it was a terribly sad song dressed up in a slick untouchable suit. I recreated it as the heart-broken ballad inside that suit. 

Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It” is a mantra for me. I sang it with the incredible vocalist Justin Hicks, who’s always elicited extreme joy in me when I’ve heard him sing. The effortlessly creative Thomas Bartlett plays the syncopated piano. I’ve been working on this one for some years now but I got to participate in the Talk Talk tribute that happened in Nov ’19 at Royal Festival Hall which included many of the musicians who collaborated with Mark Hollis. A great honor.

How to choose a Blur song? I went with one that made me cry every time I heard it. “Out Of Time” features Jacob Silver playing gorgeous bass flourishes that wrap around each rhetorically questioning lyric. 

Neil Young’s “On The Beach” is a favorite of mine. I used spare piano to re-harmonize the original to create a shifty underpinning for the uneasy feel of the lyrics. I was lucky enough to record this track in Buenos Aires at the world renowned Ion Studios, known as “the Abbey Road of Tango”. The studio retains the vibe of its beginnings in 1960 when greats like Astor Piazzolla recorded there. It’s full of ghosts and so is this track.

You may recognize “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” from the “Grease” soundtrack but it was not written specifically for the film. I crafted it in Flamingos-style (doo-wop group from the 1950’s who used heavy reverb to create their sound) with Parker, Justin and I sharing the many tracks of backup vocals. 

The ineption of Gil Scott Heron’s “Running” began when I prepared it for the GSH tribute show at London’s The Roundhouse in 2016. I took his classic spoken word piece and created chords, melody, a song around the poem. Shahzad Ismaily added bass and Jim White finishes it off with his stormy drums.