The Mountain Goats “You’re So Vain”
Cat Power “Satisfaction”

John Darnielle. Chan Marshall. Both indie singer-songwriter types. Both single individuals who record under a band name. Both have band names with animals in them. Both recorded gender-flipped covers of hits from a bygone era. Both skipped singing the choruses on said covers.

Coincidence? I think n–well, OK, it was probably a coincidence.

Gender-switching on covers is subversive by nature, even if the extent of that subversion’s sorta been dulled at this late date by repetition.

At any rate, “You’re So Vain,” a Carly Simon tune recorded by the Mountain Goats for the ultimately unreleased but recently leaked 2000 effort Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg, is an unmistakable kiss-off. But it betrays a distinctly “feminine” vulnerability, at least according to the constructs of the time. The object of scorn is masterful, self-possessed, jet-setting, using and disposing at will… basically the kind of shit dudes got away with from time immemorial, but that would mark a chica with scandal, etc.

I take it that part of the point here, other than the joy of playing a great song, is the way a lover can become a star in your eyes, no matter who you are, and the sting of betrayal sometimes blowing things up beyond their reasonable bounds.

So the flip-side of the coin, Cat Power’s narcoticized take on the Stones’ classic, from her appropriately titled Covers Record of 2000, shoots for ultra-minimal, excising all but the entitlement and bravado that was the cornerstone of Mick’s persona. (He was, after all, a lover of Carly’s, did sang backup on the original “You’re So Vain” and was a suspect for being the song’s subject, although she’s said it ain’t him.)

Slowed-down, and with “can’t you see/I’m on a losing streak” given extra weight, “Satisfaction” becomes both an exposé of the hollowness behind that pose of “masculine” cool and an expression of the human need and yearning it seeks to hide.

Interrogating a motive behind Marshall’s chorusectomy seems a little easier–it went out the window with the song’s titanic riff, part of cooling down the tune’s macho. “You’re So Vain” without the chorus removes the sort of brainfucking irony (or illogic) that was, at least to me as a child, part of the song’s hook. “You’re so vain/you probably think this song is about you,” OK, right, but if it is then… but… if he thinks… uh, OK.

Or maybe they’re both a way of saying, “Y’all know this part.”

Sweden (another 2000 MG record) at ArtistDirect.
CP’s Covers Record at Target.