This really is a great cover version. Superchunk took the raw materials of Devo’s original Girl U Want, added needle sharp guitars and gallons of adrenaline and produced something which not only didn’t sound like Devo, but didn’t sound much like Superchunk either. I like Superchunk. They’ve got some great songs, but as far as I’m aware, this is by a distance the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s just so precise and exhilarating.
Superchunk’s cover appeared on a 1992 compilation of new-wave hits covered by ’90s bands. When it came out it was one of my first CD purchases – snapped up from the little ‘Various Artists’ part of the fledgling CD section of my local Our Price. This collection was titled Freedom Of Choice, taking its name from the third Devo album, on which both Girl U Want and Whip It appeared in 1980.
That compilation also featured Mudhoney, covering Pump It Up by Elvis Costello and Yo La Tengo tackling Dreaming by Blondie. Sonic Youth provide another highlight with their chaotic take on Plastic Bertrand’s already fairly hectic Ca Plane Pour Moi.
It’s a really enjoyable collection, but in retrospect the rest of the participants are pretty obscure; Erectus Monotone, Polvo, Hypnolovehweel, Chia Pet, Tiny Lights – who the fuck are these bands? Doesn’t matter, they all do a decent enough job but Superchunk’s contribution towers over the rest.
Credit where it’s due, Superchunk had brilliant source material to work from. Girl U Want proves that Devo could write a truly genius pop song. It’s often overlooked because the follow up single was the band-defining classic, Whip It, with it’s ever-popular ironic ‘Dude Ranch’ video (apparently based on a genuine resort where a hostess having her clothes removed with a bullwhip was a regular event and popular attraction). For me though, Girl U Want is the better song.
The synthesizer/guitar hooks on Girl U Want are widely believed to have been inspired by the jagged riffs on The Knack’s My Sharona, though co-writer Gerald Casale has denied this. Coincidental or not, it’s easy to hear the similarity.
What’s more important than where the tune came from is what it does, which is to convey that overpowering feeling of being young and in love with someone, but too chickenshit to tell them.
And then there’s the lyrics:
She sings from somewhere you can’t see
She sits in the top of the greenest tree
She sends out an aroma of undefined love
It drips on down in a mist from above
She’s just the girl, she’s just the girl
The girl you want
You hear her calling everywhere you turn
You know you’re headed for the pleasure burn
But the words get stuck on the tip of your tongue
She’s the real thing but you knew it all along
She’s just the girl, she’s just the girl
The girl you want
That’s just poetry. In combination with the tune, these words saw Devo delivering an original twist on a well-worn theme and a classic piece of art-pop. And you have to say the lyrics on Girl U Want have held up a whole lot better than those on My Sharona – remember “I always get it up, for the touch of the younger kind”? Can’t hear that today without wincing.
So, with a song as great as Girl U Want to work with, you might think Superchunk couldn’t go wrong. But then you come across the sluggish version Soundgarden put on the B-Side of Rusty Cage and realise that’s not necessarily so. Then you also come across the rendition Robert Palmer put out as a single in 1994 and you understand how very wrong it could have gone. So Kudos to Devo and Superchunk for creating the two essential versions of a truly magnificent song.
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