Nonce O'Clock Nasty Terror Colonel Kill Cupple

 

Cover versions are folly.

When a band have no ideas of their own they can mimic and imitate their elders and clone their song into a new shell that will perhaps be better executed but will have no soul.

When a band have their own ideas, why would they waste them on rewriting the work of another, when they could instead spend that energy on creating their own song?

So, to successfully cover a song you can only do it because you are motivated by deep love for the work, an obsession or an ambition to slay your hero and surpass them. 

Terror Couple Kill Colonel, like many songs by Bauhaus, is far better remembered than heard. Today it sounds awkward and half-hearted, the mercury vapour of the 1980s that gave it a glamorous and deadly sheen is long gone. In its time it was perfection.

This version by 9 o'clock Nasty was plainly made by a band that adore the original and had creative juice to spare. The bass plays the same notes but executes them with fearless precision in a new structure that shakes the soul. The lyrics are whispered in a lover's ear to playfully terrify them in the dark of the night. The guitar teases and beguiles with that curious psychedelic-jazz mix that 9 o'clock Nasty have deployed so successfully in their first three EPs.

A song about sex and death that sounds exactly that. The result is a triumph.

If you loved the original, leave it perfect in your memory and enjoy this for what it is, a perfect tribute. If you never knew the original, enjoy this for what it is, a muscular and sinister dance track, with a mix of sensuality and despair that cannot be expressed in public.

As an aside, speaking as someone born in West Germany, the references to Rudi Dutschke, who was treated so shamefully by the British government, is touching and seems heartfelt. Any British readers I would encourage to read more. For that alone I would make my therapist listen to this. If they deserved the pleasure it can afford them. But that bass I shall save for myself alone.