What Does it Mean for a Cover Artist to Make a Song Her Own?

Jasmine Thompson has the incredible ability to take an original song, interpret it, and make it her own. We use that phrase, make it one's own, quite a bit to describe a well crafted cover song. But, what exactly does that mean?

Bob Dylan provides one answer. He gave an interview talking about his classic song, All Along the Watchtower, and the great Jimi Hendrix's astounding cover of that song.

For Dylan, a great artist mines the "spaces" in the original song where hidden arrangements and concepts and ideas hide. And it takes someone like Hendrix to see within those spaces ideas and concepts "other people wouldn't think of finding in there." Dylan then spoke in awe of Hendrix's ability to "find things inside a song and vigorously develop them."

Jasmine is that type of artist who sees what others cannot see. Once she uncovers a concept or an idea buried within the empty spaces of an original song, she then vigorously develops it and turns it into one of her amazing covers.

A song in which Jasmine made her own is Pompeii, originally sung by Bastille. Listen first to the original.

That is Bastille's version. Now, watch and listen to Jasmine's version.

Jasmine's version of Pompeii could not be more different than Bastille's original. I listen to her sing and wonder, how in the world did she come up with that interpretation? I've listened to other covers, and they more or less sounded like the original. Some were as fast as Bastille's version, some slower, but at their core, essentially the same.

Jasmine's version, on the other hand, is something else entirely. I'm not even quite sure how to categorize it - technically it's an acoustic version, but it's not your typical acoustic cover. To me, the version sounds very much like something that would be sung in a musical. But, of course, I wonder - how did Jasmine pull a musical rendition out of Bastille's fast paced, electronic pop song? Where did that come from?

Bob Dylan might say that Jasmine found the musical version of Pompeii within the spaces of the original. She saw something there that others, like me or other cover artists, could not see. She stripped the song down to its essences, found the thing she was looking for, and then vigorously developed it into the rendition that we have before us.

And the beauty of it is that it worked! Jasmine's Pompeii is freakin' awesome, for lack of a better term. The way she sings it with the bare piano accompaniment, sounds fantastic. Emotional and powerful, original and beautiful. Jasmine made the song her own.