Living in New Zealand has exposed me to so much great new music (and humidity! Oy, my hairs)! Our next cover is a request from Bevan and Anne who hosted Micky and I in Wellington during Fringe this February – check out Bevan’s comedy show, “Yoga While Skydiving” if you get the chance! They’re great lovers of music and have a hell of a cover request for us!
Split Enz was a New Zealand rock band during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A popular band in New Zealand and abroad, it was also a precursor to one of New Zealand’s most famous bands, Crowded House. The band is so important to New Zealand music history that they have their own government archive page.
So This Is Love is what we’d call a “deep cut.”
Deep cut (plural deep cuts) (music) An obscure song by a well known musician. ▼ “Dig a Pony” is my favorite Beatles deep cut. (idiomatic) Any obscure work, a thing likely to be recognized only by a connoisseur.
As such there was less materials available for the learning of it than one finds for the average song – only one room mic recording + incomplete and (I’ve determined) incorrect lyrics – I found this a really neat challenge! I was pleased to discover that the chord progression used is similar to my own chordal tendencies and thus easy to adapt from guitar to the piano/voice style that I’ve developed for Science for Sociopaths. Though originally performed as a straight ahead pop-rock song, the lyrics have a sort of dramatic monologue quality that lend themselves well to theatrics. My version walks a line between pop rock and soliloquy.
All things become an obsession
They could cause for a little discretion
I wonder just what it is
I feel so hollow
Hollow hollow
Just when I say
I’m falling in love
She says come on now
Enough’s enough
Oh how I burn inside
It’s always me, I’m on a one way slide, down
So this
Is love
All that Ive got to say is
So this
Is love
Ive just about had enough
It wouldn’t be so bad if I had something to say
Im so shy
But I have to try so I say hello
Hello hello
She’s an angel
Ooh la la she wears a halo
Halo halo
Just when I think
It’s love at first sight I get the “Sorry,
but not tonight”
Oh how it hurts inside
When I think of all the ways I’ve tried
So this
Is love
All that Ive got to say is
So this
Is love
Ive just about had enough
Loves elusive ways are driving me crazy
Lost in confusion, imagination’s running wild
It’s hard to be objective when all around I see
It’s one night stands in no man’s land
So this is love
Just when I say, I’m falling in love
She says come on now
Enough’s enough
Oh just when I think
It’s love at first sight
I get the “Sorry,
but not tonight”
Oh how it hurts inside
When I think of all the times I’ve cried
So this
Is love
All that Ive got to say is
So this
Is love
Ive just about had enough
So this
Is love
All that Ive got to say is
So this
Is love
I’ve just about had enough
So this
Is love
Keeping the song in the original key – D Major – put the melody in a part of my range where I have comfortable access to both my head and chest voice. I chose to start with a shifty mix and became increasingly chesty and more emotional as the song progressed – an effect that is common in both pop rock and musical theatre. Other choices – such as the scoff in “Come on now, enough’s enough” and the dramatic pauses – are more theatrical than pop-rock.
Suspensions and walking bass lines are common in many musics and they’re essential in mine, so I LIVED UP the abundance of them in this song. I even went as far as to feature a MONSTER WALKING BASS at the end. The original song fades out, so instead I walked the bass a full octave from where it began beneath disillusioned and crazed repetitions of “so this is love.”
I’m happy with the mood of the take above. There are a couple boops that I wish gone, and practice with a metronome may be in order for the near future, BUT! prior and subsequent takes didn’t have the feel that I was going for like this one does. I managed the balance of execution and emotion here such that I felt the air in my chest catch until the last note faded on this take. So, boops aside, I feel this take is on to something! I may give it another go when I’ve had more time with the song and see what comes of it 🤩 Click here to watch failed prior attempts, and stay tuned for updated versions✨
Cheers and thanks once again to Bevan and Anne for hosting us, joining us here on Patreon, and requesting this cover!
Musically yours,
Maggie