Bartees Strange – “Lady Luck” (Richard Swift Cover)
To celebrate Secretly Canadian’s 25th anniversary this year, the label is reissuing 12 old albums in a series called SC25 Editions and releasing 25 new covers in a series called SC25 Singles; the net proceeds from the whole campaign will go towards raising $250,000 for the Bloomington, Indiana charity New Hope For Families. Up next are reissues of Songs: Ohia’s 1997 self-titled debut, Zero Boys’ A Vicious Circle, Foreign Born’s Person To Person, and Faye Webster’s Atlanta Millionaire’s Club, plus Bartees Strange covering the late Richard Swift’s “Lady Luck” and Tasha and Gregory Uhlmann covering the Chicks’ “Lullaby.”
“This is a great song and one of my favorites from Richard Swift, god rest him,” says Bartees Strange. “I was really not sure how to approach the song because normally I don’t do direct covers, but I just love the arrangement and how the song was recorded so much that I just tried to do something that was true to the original but slightly different. I did some hard pan drums but still wanted it to feel very personal. Shout out to Richard Swift and shout out to Secretly for having me do this. I really enjoyed it. Hope you like it!”
“I’ve been listening to this song since I was very young, and remember singing it with my mom at my aunt’s wedding when I was 12 or 13,” Tasha says. “For that reason, it feels very tender and special to me, and I enjoyed finding a way to make it even dreamier to fit my style and mood. I’m so appreciative of Greg’s musicianship — this song deserved texture and richness and romance and he provided just that.” Gregory Uhlmann adds, “I often struggle with making covers. I’ve started some and usually abandon them, but something about this song and working with Tasha on it felt so natural. Her performance of it was so strong and I tried to keep that as the focus and to simply add landscapes in support of her delivery. I hope you enjoy this dreamy interpretation of ‘Lullaby.'”
Listen to both covers below.