Covering Morphine songs: how do you approach it?

[pklima]

Mark Sandman's songs have an enduring appeal, and there's certainly audiences interested in hearing them covered. A singer I've been talking about trying to do some country-music-for-Europeans also wants to do "The Saddest Song" and "Have A Lucky Day". But... how do others deal with playing such idiosyncratic material in a normie lineup? Just take the chord structure and melody and play it like a normal folk-rock song? Try to play Mark Sandman's lines as note for note as you can without a slide and with all those extra strings? Go all the way and play slide on a dedicated bass?

With "Have A Lucky Day" I'm thinking about just letting the singer play chords on guitar, skipping the bassline entirely, and bowing a vague imitation of the sax part.

 

[Michedelic]

Mark Sandman's songs have an enduring appeal, and there's certainly audiences interested in hearing them covered. A singer I've been talking about trying to do some country-music-for-Europeans also wants to do "The Saddest Song" and "Have A Lucky Day". But... how do others deal with playing such idiosyncratic material in a normie lineup? Just take the chord structure and melody and play it like a normal folk-rock song? Try to play Mark Sandman's lines as note for note as you can without a slide and with all those extra strings? Go all the way and play slide on a dedicated bass?

With "Have A Lucky Day" I'm thinking about just letting the singer play chords on guitar, skipping the bassline entirely, and bowing a vague imitation of the sax part.

Do you play fretless?

 

[ravlin]

Fretless slide bass? Up to you how much you want to adapt it to your onw playing, but that particulat band is a 3 piece and the bass is right up front. I'd say you could cop the sound pretty well with a fretless and ditch the slide. Up to you if you want to tune funky and play doubles.

 

[pklima]

Double bass, but with the action set high enough for clean arco it's not going to let me get all that fluid. But having tried those songs last night, it's really quite doable. Tuning in fifths helps me hit the occasional double stop, which also helps get the Mark Sandman feel, though trying to play a lot of those would be physically exhausting.

Still easier than trying to cover Morphine with a 5+ piece band and trying to give everyone something to do, heh.

 

[Michedelic]

Double bass, but with the action set high enough for clean arco it's not going to let me get all that fluid. But having tried those songs last night, it's really quite doable. Tuning in fifths helps me hit the occasional double stop, which also helps get the Mark Sandman feel, though trying to play a lot of those would be physically exhausting.

Still easier than trying to cover Morphine with a 5+ piece band and trying to give everyone something to do, heh.

If you’re on upright, at least you still have the slide factor. Since you have a full band involved, it’s not going to be a carbon copy of Morphine…part of their uniqueness was the sparse minimalism. Play in the spirit if the band, and remember that the composition is the most important thing, nit the arrangement. Respect the vibe and atmosphere of the origin material, but make it your own. Your situation doesn’t sound like a Hits cover band, trying to sound ‘just like the record’, right?

 

[pklima]

Right, we're doing acoustic "dark country" for Europeans in Europe. Morphine is just... something we both like, and fits mood-wise (well, "The Saddest Song", at least...) Trying to do things as much like the originals as possible, but that's a lot of "OK, gonna play that harmonica intro on bass" etc.

It's a fun challenge, though trying to get too slippery and liquidy does make it harder for everyone else as the bass isn't really laying down a strong, predictable rhythm and harmony.

 

[Hotblack]

Dedicated bass.

 

[40Hz]

Dedicated bass.

^This.

Pick up an inexpensive bass like a Squier Affinity, remove the E and G strings, tune the D up to E, grab a slide and a pick, and have at it.

 

[Hotblack]

^This.

Pick up an inexpensive bass like a Squier Affinity, remove the E and G strings, tune the D up to E, grab a slide and a pick, and have at it.

Exactly what I did. I also installed a new nut to give the strings a little more lift to make sliding easier.

 

[Killing Floor]

I loved Morphine and saw them a few times too. I’ve never played any of their songs but sounds like a lot of fun. I think it wouldn’t hurt if you pivoted some parts to a guitarist if you had to.

 

[Passinwind]

Both of my BGs are already optimized for slide playing, so if I ever wanted to do soundalike covers Morphine would not be a bad place to start, I reckon.

 

[pklima]

I certainly have too many basses (four BGs), but on a practical level I'm not bringing an extra bass to gigs...

Having said that, I've thought about setting one up sometime and doing a bunch of recording and saving that as samples for later. What was Mark Sandman's "usual" live tuning? D-A with the D being the usual open D on a bass?

 

[40Hz]

I certainly have too many basses (four BGs), but on a practical level I'm not bringing an extra bass to gigs...

Having said that, I've thought about setting one up sometime and doing a bunch of recording and saving that as samples for later. What was Mark Sandman's "usual" live tuning? D-A with the D being the usual open D on a bass?

It was an ongoing experiment with him. Sometimes he even tried two identical strings. But from what I can gather (and hear) two strings tuned a fifth apart seemed to be his most common tuning.

He talks here about Morphine and the inspiration behind his bass and some of the things he does or is experimenting with:

 

[Les Fret]

Why not convert a bass to a two string, raise the action and play with a slide? That’s the only way to really nail those songs. Otherwise I don’t see the point in covering these songs since they are based so much on the bass.