Across the Universe

It’s hard to do a Beatles cover well. Partly this is because of the band’s iconic (and exceedingly familiar) presence; but perhaps it’s also partly because they themselves performed and recorded so many amazing cover versions. The Beatles were, before anything else, unparalleled synthesists of Rock and Roll history. They knew precisely how differences in tempo, aggression, or vulnerability could change and renew old, familiar songs; and because of this knowledge they rarely, if ever, made mistakes with their own material.

Fiona Apple’s (new to me) version of Across the Universe is, then, one of those rare exceptions—the great Beatles cover. It might be even more: superior to the recordings on both the original and stripped versions of Let It Be. Lennon wrote Across the Universe during the disintegration of his first marriage; but the song’s feeling was buried, to a certain extent, under the novelty of the Beatles’ short-lived infatuation with Transcendental Meditation—hence the “Jai Guru Deva Om” mantra chorus line. By slowing the song down, altering the instrumentation, and simply enunciating differently that chorus, Apple brings out the emotional resonance of the original composition. And this is bolstered by the compelling accompanying music video, with its thorough destruction of an idealized past:

The removal of her headphones two thirds through the song, without any change of demeanor, is tacit evidence that she recognizes the riot ocurring around around her, but chooses to ignore it. Headphones are one of the quintessential modern symbols of disconnection—ubiquitous Walkmen and iPods block out the presence of the wider world. But Apple is not isolating herself by wearing her pair; she is asserting the primacy and eternality of her interior world over the thoughtless and ephemeral actions taking place around her. Again, the sudden removal of her own headphones reinforces this, as does the song’s refrain. Apple (who alone among the video’s characters is dressed in modern clothes) reaches back visually across time and space—yes, across the universe—to find something pure and beautiful, and to pull it, not precisely to the present, but into her (and our) everpresent. It is just as she did musically, with her selection and recording of the song. This continual renewal—and renewability—of an object of beauty is the source of meaningful, lasting art. It is also, incidentally, the mark of a great cover. That the object being renewed may have also once been thoroughly destroyed—that doesn’t matter at all.

June 11, 2006 11:06 AM art art  music  philosophy