Today, Los Angeles-based musician Jess Cornelius presents a cover of the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why.” Rather than remaining faithful to the original, Cornelius transforms the song with a grittier sound featuring a drum machine and live drums, and fuzzy guitars which unwind under her muscular croon. It was recorded by Aaron Stern in Los Angeles earlier this year.
Cornelius elaborates: “I can’t remember when this song first came under my radar — I imagine that, like for many people, it was sort of playing in the background on one of those classic hits stations. One day a friend put the song on (because we were talking about late 70s yacht rock, I guess) and it got a bit stuck in my head so I learnt the chords. It wasn’t ever going to be something that I covered faithfully, and I didn’t see the point anyway.
So I was messing around with the arrangement, making it less bouncy and darker. I have always loved the melody, and the tension of the chorus, but to me it was a sad song and I wanted to bring out the frustration of the lyrics. Also, years ago I heard Lou Reed cover Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill,’ which is one of my favorite covers of all time, and that became a bit of a template for this version. It’s almost an homage to that cover, really.
I wanted to learn the guitar solo, because I never do, so it was fun to practice all that cheesy string bending. Of course, my version is a little trashier. And I started with drum machine drums but added some live drums at the end. I kinda wanted it to sound like it was disintegrating — luckily Jarvis Taveniere was mixing so he made the drums sound cohesive and not as chaotic.”
This is Cornelius’ first new material since the release of her debut album, Distance, last year via Loantaka Records. Distance will see its UK release on May 14, 2021.
Listen to Jess Cornelius Cover the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why”
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