Use Somebody

Natasha Khan’s Bat For Lashes project was doing something sharp with indie-electro around 2008, 2009—that sweet spot where art-school sensibility could meet actual hooks without feeling like a compromise. Daniel had that strange pull to it, the way it layered synths and vulnerability in the same breath. She was getting attention, rightfully.

Then she started covering other people’s work, which is always a test. You find out what someone actually cares about, what they hear in a song that maybe the original artist didn’t mean to put there, or put there deliberately but covered up with production. The Kings Of Leon cover of Use Somebody was the one that made the rounds—that song had been everywhere, the commercial pinnacle of Kings Of Leon, and Khan found something lonelier in it. She stripped away the stadium sound and let the melody do the aching work it’s supposed to do but usually doesn’t get to.

The Bruce Springsteen cover, I’m On Fire, was different territory. Springsteen writes about desire the way other people write about geography—it’s just there, defining the landscape. Khan’s version understood that. She didn’t try to improve on it, didn’t try to make it hers in the way that some covers do, all ego. She just sang it like someone who knew exactly what he meant.

What gets me about covers like these is that they’re not about proving you’re better than the original. They’re about living inside a song for long enough to find what matters about it. Khan had the voice for that kind of generosity, the kind that doesn’t announce itself. These versions—they stayed with me longer than they probably should have. Simple as that.