Two versions of Fire
Bruce Springsteen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5PoIrcyd34
Pointer Sisters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS6NXsgEoSw&list=RDSS6NXsgEoSw&start_radio=1
Me:
Pointer Sisters’ Kinda Great here.
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SS:
They *are* kinda great. Wonderful singers. I’m partial to the Boss’ own interpretation, which I think uniquely captures the raging hormone adolescent horniness of his lyrics in a way that the Pointers’ cover, though upbeat and fun, just doesn’t.
So I agree - they’re kinda great. I think the fault by comparison lies not in their voices but in their chromosomes - they were never horny teenage boys. And Fire is a quintessentially horny teenage boy song. (I don’t think the XX gender switch in the Pointers version works well with the XY lyrics, which would be YY lyrics if the chromosomal combination were allowed).
The extended silent break just before resuming the next verse “…Like Romeo and Julie, Samson and Delilah” just doesn’t create the tension or for that matter make any stylistic sense in the Pointer Sisters’ version to me, because there’s just not the framing sexual tension in the song to begin with. It’s there fershure in Springsteen’s (though I thought he chewed a bit of scenery in the process).
They’re in a far higher class of vocal talent, but in interpretation the difference in the cover from the original made me think of Pat Boone’s version of Tutti Frutti. Pat’s (now thankfully obscure) cover version was a bigger hit when it came out than Lil Richard’s original, but it just warn’ t the same song Little Richard had in mind.
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Me:
Interesting it is indeed to compare BS and the Sisters.
Obvious point to note we’re getting opposite contrasting perspectives going to the same point. It’s intriguing to consider the male/female versions given men’s and women’s physical, psychological and cultural differences.
I listened to/ watched a few BS vids and Sisters vids.
My sense is that BS’s and the Sisters’ performances have distinct strengths and weaknesses in the specific vids we exchanged.
BS in the version you sent, the 5’ and change, is a bit shticky at points that cuts against the intensity he wants to convey. And in the parts along the way when he belts a few lines for me it’s less effective in conveying intensity than he if were to go more sotto voce the way he does at the beginning and in other parts.
I can see the argument the other way, like it’s his frustration exploding but I don’t hear it that way.
Also after he stops the show for a few seconds after he sings “cool” is also show bizzy in a way that takes away from the intensity.
By the way generally the verse starting with “You had a hold on me from the start…” is lyrically and musically a touch weaker compared to the rest of the song to my ears in BS’s version. It seems a little generic to me. The Sisters do a better build up of tension in this verse.
Don’t get me wrong his version does what you say it does. It’s overall exceedingly fine but has a few imperfections. Btw his “I’m on Fire” is nonpareil.
The Sisters do a fine job of evoking the complexity of a young woman’s/girl’s conflicting emotions in such a situation, that of some”feline” game playing married to hesitation and restraint—must hold something back fighting for a gamut of reasons and impulses—with wanting to explode.
I see the Sisters’ post-“cool” break differently than you. It’s shorter than BS’s and so less showy, but does make some psychological sense to me in the way of bluntly cutting things off. But you do make a good point too, because the short break and then transition into the Romeo and Juliet verse is generic and pallid.
So we differ on the effectiveness of the gender switch. I don’t think the song suffers at all from it. For me it’s provides a different gendered lens and works great.
I wonder if for both for BS and the Sisters, their versions would be better served purely musically if heard without the distraction, in the Glenn Gould sense of that, of the on-stage business.
Where we might come to Joni Mitchell level violence [ :-)] is the notion that the Sisters’ version is somewhat comparable to Pat Boone doing Tutti Frutti. Pat has a nice crooner’s voice that can work on ballads in which on some things I’ve heard by him he even can reach occasional smokiness. But like say Sinatra, the man cannot rock. His Tutti Frutti is an embarrassment, template ersatz. Now the Sisters, as I argue, evoke something that interpretively and psychologically works, the opposite of a flattened version. Btw I saw one video of them older doing Fire. *It* doesn’t come across.
