Sunday Music: "Black Coffee In Bed" - Squeeze vs. Bilal & Nikki Jean

You know 'Black Coffee in Bed' by Squeeze - one of the most melancholiest of melancholy breakup songs probably ever. Squeeze were masters at this. It’s Brits channeling Muscle Shoals rhythms while crafting Larkin-like stories that feel as literary as they are musically informed.

You can’t tell me “Now she's gone / And I'm back on the beat / A stain on my notebook / Says nothing to me,” isn’t somehow channeling “The first day after a death, the new absence / Is always the same; we should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time”.

The song has a whole life to it. There’s a life inside of it. It’s complete. You’ll recognize it. I’ve always appreciated it.

In the Questlove Supreme interview with Bilal, there’s a point towards the end where Sugar Steve (Steve Mandel, legendary studio guy), brings up how Bilal was one of the first artists who ever gave him free rein in the studio. It was a big deal for him. It’s still a big deal to him today, 20+ years later.

Steve says, for anyone looking for an example of the directions Bilal could take something, as a favorite session he’d worked on with the artist, to find Bilal and Nikki Jean’s cover version of “Black Coffee in Bed” on YouTube. I figured it’d be interesting. I appreciated the enthusiasm of the shoutout. I pulled it up. And, WOW.

The Squeeze original has a sort of emotional landscape to it. It’s got familiar pieces of architecture all over the song. The verse guitar parts are Muscle Shoals. The chorus guitars are post-disco meeting new wave (there’s some harmonic structure there, if you know what I’m talking about, you’ll appreciate it).

The point is, it’s a rich landscape they’re playing with. Before we even touch the lyrics, which -

The song is borrowed images from common life performed expertly well. We’ve all stained the notebook with the coffee mug. We’ve all written the sappy letter. We haven’t all connected the relationship between the pointlessness and the weight of the stains that don’t really matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

What could Bilal and Nikki Jean add? 2+ decades of music. That’s what. Listen to the layers of drums - the deep kick, and then the wet, hand clappy drums sitting on a harmonic shelf up a bit higher in the mix. Find all the weird background voices. Check out the more out of time, quick panning guitar (you definitely want to try this on headphones, fwiw).

The emotions are the same, but the landscape is - it’s a whole new world when they get their hands on it. The space in the bridge too, make sure you make it all the way through.

Because great covers have great contrasts. They get what the original song was contrasting, and then they twist it. Now, whether or not Squeeze was Otis Redding vs. Philip Larkin - I’m just projecting, but say they were for a second. That means when Bilal and crew get their pass, they need new points of contrast for their twist. I’m hearing Prince vs. Maya Angelou. I’m hearing Dilla vs. Mary J. with a twist of Staple Singers.

If you want to find something new to say, give yourself permission to search, and then remember there are all sorts of great influences and examples you can draw from.

ps. more Bilal here, and obviously,