The newest installment of Jack White's Third Man Records Blue Series, in which he records artists he loves for some wonderful 7" singles, features Courtney Barnett in a dark brooding cover of Ronald S. Howard's "Shivers" from his time in The Boys Next Door.
Barnett has been taking the rock world by storm this year with her garage rock style that provides an anthem to the all too real observational lyrics fans have connected so deeply with. Her cover of the Howard penned song is just another reminder of the talent her and the rest of the band exude.
According to Third Man Records, the band recorded two songs over a long weekend in Nashville both the cover, which servers as the b side to the 7" single, and "Boxing Day Blues Revisited," the epilogue to Barnett's final song on her 2015 album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.
Fans of the album will know "Boxing Day Blues" as the soft outro to the album describing Barnett's failures to be there for a lover after a death in this person's family. But that apparently isn't the whole story, as Third Man Records describes the revisited song as "a strangely catching, plaintive reflection on the loneliness that blossoms when a person you care about treats you like literal garbage."
Barnett's starkness comes out in her cover of "Shivers" as well, moaning those opening lyrics "I've been contemplating suicide, but it really doesn't suit my style." She manages to capture the same dark tone but turns it grittier and away from the sort of piano ballad, new wave feel the original song has.
The 7" record will be available in the Third Man Store and record stores everywhere on October 16, and pre-orders are available now.
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