Cover: Shiny Toy Guns, "Major Tom (Coming Home)"

This is an example of how you can cover a song, not substantially change its sound or feel, and still wind up with something rather improved. Peter Schilling's original was a pretty good song, of course, but it was sort of a basic exercise in early/mid-80's synthpop. Good, if a little on-the-nose. It feels like there's no shortage of songs from that time period that used advanced technology to remark on the advancements of technology, whether "Video Killed the Radio Star," "She Blinded Me With Science," or "99 Luftballoons," a dire warning about rapidly progressing cold war balloon technology. Lyrically, it was also of course a nod to David Bowie's earlier tune, "Space Oddity" (and by extension the also-good "Ashes to Ashes.") And then you could argue whether or not it misses the point of the drug abuse undertone of the song, and whether that matters.

I really dig Shiny Toy Guns' version, which shines up the production without really taking it out of its original context, then of course provides that soothingly detached vocal, which is so sweet and so cold it could be the subject of a William Carlos Williams poem. It truly feels like drifting, falling.