“I ain’t lyin’…when you come home or you might walk in…I got to have
a little respect,” demanded Aretha Franklin in 1967. Eight years later in 1974, Cris Williamson
urged women to “lean on each other” and to be there for each other in her song
“Secret.” The 1970s also saw Joni Mitchell as a singer-songwriter and Patti
Smith—later deemed one of the most influential artists in rock history—as a
punk-rocker. Female musicians rose to
prominence in the 1970s, and they often sang about the ideologies and themes
analogous with the feminist movement. In
1978, Gloria Gaynor further contributed to this movement by producing “I Will
Survive,” and by 1979 it had reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Nineteen years later, the band Cake covered
Gaynor’s disco song, this time reconstructing it as punk-rock. Cake’s version of “I Will Survive” is
different from Gloria Gaynor’s version in its overall theme, style of music
(including vocal timbre, melody, tempo and instrumentation) and word choice in
the lyrics.
The original version of “I
Will Survive” is filled with female empowerment, sending a message of personal
strength after a break-up. Cake’s
version, released in 1996, also conveys a sense of personal strength after a
break-up. However, the cover song is
from a male perspective, with lead Cake singer John
McCrea at the microphone. He expresses male empowerment, using the same basic lyrics
and message of Gaynor’s version as a way of shifting the blame of heartache to the
female instead of the male. Women, he
insists by covering the song, are just as capable of breaking hearts as men are. Furthermore, men have just as much will power
and self-sufficiency to get over the pain that women cause them and move on in
life.
The lyrics in Cake’s version of “I
Will Survive” are almost identical to Gaynor’s.
However, there are slight differences that are important to consider
when comparing the two songs. For
example, in the first verse, Gaynor states, “I should have changed my stupid
lock/I should have made you leave your key.”
In Cake’s version, however, McCrea sings, “I should have changed my fucking lock/I would have made you leave your key.” This modification is important for many
reasons. The use of vulgar language reasserts
male empowerment, suggests feelings of anger not present in Gaynor’s version,
and is reflective of the hard-edge quality of rock music. The change from “should have” to “would have”
is also important; while Gaynor states that demanding the key would have been
the wiser course of action—had she changed the locks—McCrea asserts that he would have demanded the key—a course of
action that without a doubt would have taken place had the correct action
preceded it. Again, this language is
demonstrative of a distinct male aggression.
In the chorus, Gaynor sings, “weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye” while McCrea
sings, “weren’t you the one who tried to break
me with desire.” Cake is accusing
females of using seductive means to get what they want out of males, a huge
jump from Gaynor’s accusations of someone simply leaving. Another example of a lyric change in the
chorus is again rather small, yet is still significant. While Gaynor sings, “I know I’ll stay alive,” Cake sings, “I know I’ll be alive.” Gaynor is stating that even though she has
been deserted, she will pull through emotionally
and stay “alive” in mindset and attitude.
Cake, rather, is stating that he will physically be alive despite being left—this is more a matter of body
than spirit. By reminding himself that
his body will physically remain no matter what happens, McCrea is yet again
reasserting his masculinity. In the
second verse, Gaynor sings, “I’m not that chained-up
little person still in love with you” while McCrea sings “I’m not that stupid little person still in love with
you.” Again, Cake is using harsh,
aggressive lyrics to give a hard-edge rock feeling to the song and to reassure
its masculine perspective. Gaynor, on
the contrary, is admitting to past submissiveness by acknowledging that she was
“chained up” while in love. Finally, the
addition of “yeah, yeah” throughout the Cake version is another way of making
the song more like rock than disco. While
Cake sings “yeah, yeah,” in a more rubato, improvisatory style, Gaynor sings
“hey, hey,” definitively and right on the beat, as if planned. This
may be due to the fact that disco music is intended for dancing, and the
steady, pulsating rhythm is an important musical element of the genre.
Finally, the musical style of the
Cake version of “I Will Survive” is dramatically different from Gloria Gaynor’s
original version. While the harmonic
structure of both songs is the same, the instrumentation, timbre, and tempo are
extremely different. Cake slows down the
song markedly, diverting from the up-tempo disco pace. Cake uses rock and Latin instrumentation,
with guitar, bass, additional percussion instruments, and the trumpet. The
disco version uses instruments such as piano, strings, and the harp—part of the
lush orchestration sound typical of disco music.
The Cake version starts out with acoustic
guitar, outlining the chords to be used throughout the song. The Gaynor version begins with the infamous
climb and descent of
E7
chords on the piano. This E7 (V7) chord
remains in the introduction of the Cake version, which is important as it
creates suspense before resolving to the tonic of a minor, where the song
really takes off. In the disco version,
when the vocals enter the instrumentation is limited, with chords only on the
first beat until “and so you’re back,” when the full percussion set enters. In the Cake version, however, the bass comes
in as soon as the vocals enter, and remains prominent throughout most of the
song. The bass guitar is a distinctive
rock instrument, and is not present in the disco version. Instead, stringed instruments smoothly
provide the bass line in legato fashion. Beats one and three are accented in
both versions of the song.
The melody line is also altered in the Cake
version: the words are sung on a lower
pitch throughout the entire song, and McCrea slightly draws out the words at times
waiting until the syncopated beat to sing.
Gaynor, however, usually sings right on the beat. This shows the rebellious nature of the
remake; while keeping the lyrics and chords almost exactly the same, he refuses
to conform exactly to the original by slightly changing the melodic delivery. For example, “and so you’re back” is sung
slightly more drawn out than the original version, and the vocalist drops down in
pitch on the word “back.” Also, in the
second verse McCrea sings, “And so you thought you’d just drop by and you
expect me to be free,” staying on the same note for the entire phrase. This is another way that he deviates from the
original version, rebelliously refusing to move from that one note and rejecting
any expectations for melodic motion.
After the first chorus, there is a lengthy
electric guitar solo, typical for many types of rock music, and the bass guitar
is still prominent. At the second chorus,
the electric
guitar
returns again, and about half way through, after “Oh no, not I,” trumpeter
Vince DeFiore enters for the first time.
He provides a smooth improvisatory backline (drawing on jazz in both
instrumentation and style) until the end of the chorus, when he performs a
solo. In the disco version, the trumpet
part is limited to just background riffs, and where the trumpet enters in the
Cake version, the harp performs a glissando.
Accompanying the trumpet near the end of the song is McCrea singing
“yeah, yeah, la da da” nonsense vocals, (drawing on jazz, the blues, and scat
singing). Then the introduction
returns, with just an unamplified guitar and the bass. But where verse one entered in the beginning,
an electric guitar solo is performed again, this time much more intensely. Then the trumpet enters for an electric
guitar/trumpet duet, showing the Latin influence in rock music. In the Gaynor version, the chorus is
repeated with vocals, instead of having solos.
From TPA sheet music to purely electronic techno
music, popular music has gone through innumerable stages of instrumentation,
style, and form. Technology, politics,
cultural and social factors all contribute to these changes. Cover songs provide an excellent way of analyzing music as it
changes throughout time, and “I Will Survive” is yet another example of one of
the many musical shifts that have taken place in the past thirty years.
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