Taking the John Denver classic out for a spin is a sincerely wild yet oddly fitting experience for Lana Del Rey. Her vocal strengths certainly lend themselves to Take Me Home, Country Roads, though much of the charm comes from the grainy, acoustic glory. Expectedly mellow and charming, Rey holds firm with the hint of a record filled with covers. Was staying up until midnight the best use of time? It passed along that way while watching The Holdovers anyway. Why not check a few more off the to-do list? Keep up to date with the culturally relevant highs of our time and with an artist whose most recent efforts were a tad drab. At least Rey sets the record straight with this cover, right in time for Christmas – when those country roads can truly take us home.
Without a doubt this suits the style Rey now takes on. Take Me Home, Country Roads settles in well with her vocal range and provides a truly dependable cover of an all-time great. Covers are extensions of an artist and their taste. Few take to the recording studio and put effort into remembering the hooks and intonations of vocal work for songs they do not truly care for. John Denver may be a legendary musician, but his best-known track has been scuppered and taken to pub jukebox fodder. No foul tragedy but living next to an aged pub where said jukebox is still rotating these 1970s classics is a horror in the making. Rey injects some well-needed originality into this one. Let us hope she can do the same for Sweet Caroline.
Short and sweet – this cover of Take Me Home, Country Roads is over before it truly begins. A wonderful cover nonetheless but even then the original track was not that long. There were more instrumental layers to it, something which Rey strips back almost entirely here. Her voice and a piano are enough for much of this rendition. A nice flutter with some backing vocalists comes through toward the end of the track – a neat diversion from the norm of the modern artist covering classics. Rey sets yet another standard, one where covers become more than mere trivialities as they were for Dolly Parton on Rockstar. This is of the Bob Dylan variety, a creative outlet which pairs a tremendous vocalist with a strong track which holds meaning beyond West Virginia.
Capturing the intimacy and unravelling it in all its obvious light, Rey takes Take Me Home, Country Roads and makes it a track of real unity and celebration. It always was under Denver – but this is a clear sign of how easy it can be to turn a track of tremendous depth, take away its few parts and still come through with a challenging yet powerful interpretation. Rey is one of the few who could do this with such aplomb, a necessary characteristic when adapting a piece like this. Tremendous efforts and a hopeful insight into what may come next for Rey – be it more covers or original material – her voice is steady and her interpretation of how these simple song structures can impact a listener is still as firm as expected.
