I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Japanese Breakfast‘s Michelle Zauner is kind of becoming a low-key cover queen. In the past, she’s performed renditions of Tears For Fears‘ “Head Over Heels, The Cardigans’ “Lovefool,” Wilco’s “Jesus, Etc,” and The Mamas & The Papas’ “California Dreamin,'” among others.
As Stereogum notes, in a wellness diary for Vanity Fair, Zauner wrote in April about how she was trying to learn a cover of Dolly Parton‘s “Here You Come Again,” saying, “I struggle to learn a Dolly Parton cover with three key changes, but boy does it make me happy. I dare you to listen to ‘Here You Come Again’ without smiling.” Well, she’s achieved that goal, covering Dolly’s “Here You Come Again” at a performance at the National in Richmond, Virginia. Sitting at a keyboard, Zauner offered a light and lovely take on Dolly’s 1977 classic, and audiences seemed to appreciate it too, with many voices joining to sing along. Have a look below.
I saw @Jbrekkie cover Dolly Parton last night and that absolutely made my week. pic.twitter.com/i07NKBiY8R
— Meghin Moore✨ (@meghin_) July 23, 2021
Yesterday, Zauner offered up a Simlish version of her Jubilee track “Be Sweet” into a gibberish tune for the game’s upcoming Cottage Living expansion pack. Zauner also recently spoke to Uproxx about the making of Jubilee and how Wilco’s Tweedy inspired her to play an epic guitar solo.
“I was just really inspired by Wilco. Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline write some of the greatest guitar solos. But they’re a specific type of guitar solo. They’re not like a bad rock solo. They have a narrative. I was really inspired by that song ‘At Least That’s What You Said.’ It feels like this sort of very quiet moment between two people that’s really stripped down for the first minute or two, and then Jeff Tweedy just says everything that’s not said between these people in his guitar solo. ‘Posing For Cars’ is very much about two people who love each other in very different ways, and how both are really valid and deep. It felt like that same kind of buildup moment, where I needed to express all of the underlying emotion in that song through a guitar solo.”
Jubilee is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.
