drmstream[writing]

I’m just a sucker for Joey Ramone’s soft voice.  He recorded one of my two all-time favorite cov­ers with It’s a Won­der­ful World (the other is the for­mer Stu­dent Teacher’s Philip Shelley’s unrecorded ver­sion of Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, which I had on a cas­sette tape for the longest time before it sucu­umbed to the rav­ages of my glove compartment.)

Ramone sings slowly about love and you believe him.  He’s hang­ing around the song, going inside it, teas­ing the song with a strong emo­tion that the lyrics and the melody can’t quite do jus­tice to, a long, weary arc that takes all of us back to an ado­les­cent moment that I don’t really think Ramone ever felt.  I mean, he could sing it, so he could feel it, but he never felt it, and that’s why he can be so lan­guid and affectionate.

Lis­ten.

I know you didn’t ask, but here you go anyway…a sam­ple from Shelley.

Phebe by Philip Shelley