Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Jump” by Aztec Camera:

Every so often it occurs to me that “Jump” by Van Halen is one of my favorite songs ever. I imagine it has to do with a few things besides the song itself: it came out when I was old enough to pay attention, and young enough to get completely obsessed; moreover, the Chicago Cubs ran onto the field to it for years, or at least for enough of my childhood for it to seem like forever.  Also, it’s a dynamite piece of pop music: the synthesizer opening, plus all the trademark Van Halen bombast, and a meaning that is ambiguous enough to mean whatever you want it to, if it means anything at all.

It’s this last point that I suspect Roddy Frame/Aztec Camera seized on when they recorded this cover version only a few months after Van Halen released the original. They strip the song of all that bombast, all the Diamond Dave silliness (nobody’s going to do the splits to this version), and invest it with just a touch of introspection. The thing about a great song is that it can be reinvented in any number of ways and always sound both the same and new.  I’m not sure “Jump” is actually great in this way, but Aztec Camera prove that the song, and they, are very good indeed through this interpretation.