Favorite Cover Songs #4 - "The Sun and the Rainfall
@teamfreak16 (43655)
Denver, Colorado
June 18, 2016 8:15am CST
#4 in this series that I call Favorite Cover Songs takes us to Germany, home of The Merry Thoughts.
The Merry Thoughts were formed by Carston Mainz and Olaf Willschlager, both of whom eventually left, leaving vocalist Marvin Arkham and guitarist Sonja Jordan the band name. The pair soldiered on, releasing two albums before calling it quits.
The 1993 album Psychocult (which is very good) produced The Merry Thoughts' cover of Depeche Mode's "The Sun and the Rainfall," one of the album's highlights.
The original Depeche Mode version appears on their 1982 album A Broken Frame. And as good as that version is, Arkham and Jordan gave the song a bit of oomph.
Although they claimed otherwise (they called their music "Counter-pop, according to Wikipedia,) The Merry Thoughts were considered a goth band, particularly due to the fact that Arkham sounds exactly like Sisters of Mercy vocalist Andrew Eldritch.
Don't let the goth tag deter you. This might be considered goth, but it's not the "slit your wrists" type of goth the average listener associates with the genre.
It is one of my favorite cover songs. (Plus, my girlfriend hated it, so you know it's a great song!)
A really good cover of the Depeche Mode song, in the Sisters of Mercyesque style cherished by The Merry Thoughts...
4 people like this
1 response
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
18 Jun 16
More of a Kraftwerk electronic sound and the guy's voice is a bit Bauhaus.
1 person likes this
@teamfreak16 (43655)
• Denver, Colorado
18 Jun 16
Hmm. I only heard the Eldritch similarity. Peter Murphy at his deepest, like on "Deep Ocean, Black Sea." I could see that now.
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
18 Jun 16
@teamfreak16 I was referring to that sort of deep somber tone. It's a DM song but more electronic than DM. Hard to explain.
1 person likes this
