Ethel Cain delivered a gut punch in the Like A Version studio as she covered ‘Angels and Fuselage’ by Drive-By Truckers.
Wrapped up by her band and armed with a harmonica and her Southern Gothic drawl, Ethel Cain rolled through the devastating ballad (which sits at a very deliberate 67 bpm).
It’s a cover that’s intimately true to form, which was Ethel’s intention for her debut Like A Version appearance.
“I just told the band ‘we gotta do it straight up’,” she said.
“I was nitpicking with them, down to the little guitar licks and whatnot. The bends and the chords. I said ‘everything in this song is created so perfectly and specifically that it has to be true to the record. We’re just gonna give it out best shot to capture it.’
“You really don’t have to mess with perfection.”
The original was released on Drive-By Truckers’ 2001 record Southern Rock Opera, a CD that Ethel found in a little antique store while on a road trip from Indiana to Chicago with some friends. But it was ‘Angels and Fuselage’, the final song on the 19-track record, that rang out as the sun set, forging a core memory that she’ll never forget.
The profound effect it had resulted in Ethel Cain sampling ‘Angels and Fuselage’ some 20 years later on her own track ‘Wrestling In Dirt Pits’, which stayed in demo form on her tumblr and was never fully released.
Check out more from Ethel Cain’s debut in the Like A Version studio below.
Behind Ethel Cain’s cover of Drive-By Truckers’ ‘Angels and Fuselage’ for Like A VersionLoading…Ethel Cain – ‘Thoroughfare’ (live for Like A Version)Loading…