Glee covers that recontextualized the original song
So I think that the best thing a show like Glee can do to a song is use the original meaning and transform it into something different and hopefully meaningful to the context of its characters. We all know that out of the 700 or so songs covered a lot were just cash grabs, covering what’s popular to chart and get that iTunes money. But there were also some that were genuinely poignant to the characters and the storylines or just in general special in their own way. Recontextualisation can mean a lot of things and most GCVs are transforming the original just by virtue of existing within the narrative of the show but I’m looking for Glee versions that really feel like they elevate the song in some way, like they make you look at it in a different way.
I’ll share a few examples that have been on my mind but I’m sure there are many, many more, so please do add your own and explain it in as much detail as you’d like, I’d love to hear your faves. I’ve chosen three solos and, as a preamble, I’m usually not a huge fan of solos as a type of cover on Glee. They were far more common than duets or group numbers but I think a solo has to work harder, in a way, to justify its existence as a cover. At least if you cover what was originally a solo as a duet or group number, you can play with several voices and the distribution of parts and create meaning through that. This really is just imo but I think a solo needs to have at least some form of recontextualization to make me care that a new singer is now covering it.
Luckily this does happen often in Glee and without further ado, here are just three examples that are my favourites/have been on my mind recently.
I just rewatched “Grilled Cheesus” today so I have very fresh memories of this Kurt performance. Originally, it’s a pretty straightforward Beatles song with some generic lyrics and a pleasant melody - Beatles fans don’t come for me, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with generic. It’s a pretty tame love song and not so overtly romantic that it’d be weird for a song to sing it about a hospitalized father. In fact, it even has that soft quality that makes it pretty wholesome.
The recontextualisation, for me, comes in when we consider what holding his father’s hand means to Kurt versus what it meant for the Beatles as a tame love song. It’s no longer about this most innocent of physical contacts between lovers but the desperate cry of a boy who wants his father to squeeze his hand back. It’s still about intimacy, in a way, but it’s now about a familial bond and the need for someone to hold us and say it’s gonna be okay.
There’s one line in particular why this got stuck in my head and even made me write this post now, despite having been thinking about the other two examples for months and months. It’s this part:
You’ll let me be your man
As I was crying my eyes out watching flashbacks of the Hummels, this part struck me as particularly emotional in the context of their relationship. We get the feeling that before the series’ start the relationship between father and son is somewhat distant. Don’t get me wrong, Burt has always looked after Kurt and tried his best but prior to Kurt officially coming out and the two actively working on this relationship it was an uneasy dynamic. They’ve been getting better and trying more and it’s wonderful to witness, but they both occasionally struggle with navigating their father-son bond in a homophobic world where Kurt is constantly being put down and Burt tried to unlearn harmful ideas he grew up with. As we see in season 1, there’s tension between the two when it comes to this concept of The Son who learns from The Father, and I’m being dramatic with the capitalization but that’s because these are larger themes they’re working with. Conflict arises when Kurt feels like Burt is getting the father-son bonding they never did with Finn and, even though Burt doesn’t want him to feel this way, there’s a sense that Kurt isn’t manly enough to be his boy. It’s not their individual fault but it’s a shitty thing regardless that Kurt doesn’t always feel like he’s the son whom his father wanted, like he can’t grow into the man he wanted.
So when Kurt sings, “let me be your man”, it’s such a small thing in this already emotionally charged performance but it alone is enough to make me reconsider the whole song. Because Kurt wants nothing more than to be able to hold his dad’s hand again and maybe even be the one who says it’s all gonna be okay this time. He wants Burt to live long enough to see him become a man.
That Kurt section was longer than intended so let’s see how much I’ve got to say about Unique, lol. Alex Newell’s voice is such that a Unique solo was bound to end up as one of my favourites in the entire show but I’m really glad the character was allowed not only stunning vocals but narratively important songs. There are many interpretations to every song, but the way I see it Beyoncé’s original version is about femininity and the double standards women face. It’s about trying to challenge people, specifically men to change perspective. It’s essentially a thought experiment about gender-swapping and it tells the story of misfortune on a small and personal scale.
Now think about it in the context of Unique’s character. Particularly in the episode “The End of Twerk” but really throughout her run on the show, Unique struggles with misgendering and flat-out transphobia. She’s not always recognized for the woman she is, challenged about her gender identity, challenged about her right to exist, really. So it’s in that context that we’re giving “If I Were a Boy”, a song about hypothetical gender-swapping, to Unique, a trans woman. When Unique sings about the double standards between genders, it hits different because she knows what it feels like to be perceived as a man and it wasn’t true to who she was. Instead of challenging an unfaithful partner, Unique is challenging anyone listening to see that yes, it is different for men and women and it makes all the difference for her when people recognize and respect her as not just a boy but a woman. A woman who didn’t choose to be one and didn’t choose to have transphobia and gendered double standards be imposed on her.
I think that Unique’s version still has that underlying plea of asking men to consider how it feels but it just has so many more layers now because of her identity and journey. She’s speaking as someone who has been seen as a boy before but also as someone who is a woman and knows how tough it can be. We see some great acting through song from Alex Newell as they tear up during the performance without taking it too far and making it melodramatic. Instead, the heartbreak of this cover lies in its simplicity. As the song ends, it’s ultimately that last line that keeps haunting me:
Because that’s what Unique’s been told over and over again, and that’s a kind of meaning that never would have been there in the original version.
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard me go on about, well, any aspect of this whole scene. I’ll try to keep it brief and we’ll see how it goes. So with this one, Taylor Swift has spoken on several occasions about the idea behind the original song and I’m sure any Swiftie could do a much better job of explaining that context than I could here. For the purposes of this post, let’s consider Taylor’s version as a song about a could-be, a potential future that plays out with all the ups and downs and the hope of making it work despite everything that could stand in its way. Honestly there’s way more to be said about the original song but for now really just leave it at “ultimately hopeful love story about a future together.”
So what does Santana Lopez do, she uses it as a breakup song. It’s a serenade to Brittany reminiscent of “Songbird”, except that was before a proper relationship between the two even formed and now here they are, at a painful end. It’s a slower and more melancholic version of the song and that alone means it’s different but there are so many layers to what makes “Mine” such a transformative cover and a very, very strong contender for my favourite Glee cover of all time. One, it’s how Santana seems to use it to lament about their past and the future she imagined they would have but they might never get to experience. As Brittany says, she turns it into a sad song while the original was really more hopeful than anything. Two, Naya Rivera’s acting once again shines as she conveys all the emotions she needs to while doing nothing more than sitting there and facing the girl she loves, in the room where they fell in love. Even without watching the performance, even if you just listen to the studio version you can hear the pain behind her words and how difficult this decision to end things is for her.
Those two aspects would already be enough and I could talk much more about both the context of the song and Naya’s vocals and acting, but I also want to focus on a third aspect. Much like with the first two songs, there’s a particular bit in the song that cements it as a recontextualised one in my mind. Said bit in “Mine” is when the song switches perspective and the lyric changes to quoting this lover Taylor imagined a future with. Some of it is cut in the episode version but my favourite part made it in:
You said, “I remember how we felt, sitting by the water
(And every time I look at you, it’s like the first time
I fell in love with a careless man’s careful daughter)
She is the best thing that’s ever been mine”
Words cannot express how much I love this but I’ll try anyway. So once again there are several layers, and the one that strikes me the most is the pronoun. “Mine” is a not very gendered song save for a few words here and there and the most we get is that the singer is a woman because of this quote part that’s from the lover’s perspective. When Taylor sings “she” and when Santana sings “she”, we understand that they’re talking about themselves through the lovers’ lens. But I love it so much when Glee does the pronoun change thing and though that’s not quite what happens here, I think it’s important to highlight this one line and one word nonetheless. Because of the way Naya sings it, putting some slight emphasis on “she is the best thing” and the way the whole scene is structured, Glee doesn’t have to touch the lyrics for us to still understand that this is transformed and it’s Santana talking about Brittany. She is the best thing that’s ever been hers and she’ll always love her the most. And do you believe it now? Even though they’re breaking up, they’ll make it somehow.
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