I thought Dr. Dog did “Heart It Races” and then some other band covered it. That band was Helsinki Architecture, which earned mad points for the name alone. It turns out, Helsinki Architecture came up with this eerie beat laden ballad and later, a folk type band covered it.

Covers are the greatest way to completely change the meaning of a song without altering a single word. When Hozier does Beyonce, it’s very much Hozier. I’m still wrapped in flannel, my toes digging into the soil of the forest as I wait for dawn, even though I know this should be an anthem as Beyonce presented it.

Sometimes covers can be controversial. Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” is an anthem of the domestic abuse victim as survivor and don’t you damn well forget it. But when Cake took a stab, their signature spoken word and sort of singing took a triumphant victory and turned it into something else. I have a theory that these songs can be sung by the same person, just at different times in their fight. At some point, you are victorious over your abuser, apart and whole and changed and alive. But at some point before that, you are trying to get up the courage to walk out that door. To change the locks. To get up off the floor. Both viewpoints are necessary. Neither one is better. Just different.

You have at some point written a story. You have perhaps not realized that you were the only person in the whole entire universe who could have written this story at this time as this person that you are. Were. Point being, sometimes people do things differently. You weren’t telling the same story. You were talking about the same thing from different angles. Neither one is better. Both are necessary.