Jackson

Last week I had a bit of a lapse in consistency. Though to be honest, I'm pretty surprised I had managed to maintain as much consistency as I had. Anyway, I'm back. I hope you're all excited for this edition of whatever this is I'm doing.

So in the last post I talked about gender roles in songs and how switching the gender roles pretty much always leads to good things. Consider the Please Mister Postman entry. The Beatles switched the gender roles in that song and it won the round.

Today's song is Jackson, written in 1963 by Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Leiber. It was originally recorded by Wheeler, but I don't think anyone knows that. I bet you're going to get 10 out of 10 people saying it's by Johnny Cash just about every time you ask 10 people. So we'll use the Cash version as our benchmark.

Cash recorded his version in 1967 with June Carter. The Song reached number 2 on the country charts and won a Grammy in 1968.

I should probably note here that the original version of the song was a conversation between father and son, and the later versions changed to conversation between a couple. I think it's pretty obvious that that's why the earlier version isn't as well known. It's neat though that the song has had its gender roles changed more than just the one time I'm featuring today.

Okay moving on. So the other version of the song I'm featuring is by an English band called the Brakes. They’re known as Brakesbrakesbrakes in the US. The song, features Liela Moss of the Duke Spirit, and is on their album Give Blood: released in 2005. The indie music shop Rough Trade voted the album best of 2005.

Okay, so let's get to the comparison.

Johnny Cash & June Carter:

The Brakes Featuring Liela Moss:

Okay, so the Johnny Cash and June Carter version is really good. It's clearly great, and that's why it's the version of the song everyone knows. But the Breaks cover is pretty much equally as good. Both are solidly tight, and both have excellent singing. So what makes the difference? It's the gender roles. A man announcing he's leaving his lover to go to a town down the road is not as badass as a woman doing the same thing, and that makes all the difference. Beyoncé knows that, and that’s why it's the only thing she ever sings about. So Liela and the Brakes win this one. I guess that’s a bit of an upset. It's fun when that happens.