{"id":867,"date":"2014-08-15T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T08:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=867"},"modified":"2014-08-13T11:32:18","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T10:32:18","slug":"song-of-the-week-jump-by-aztec-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=867","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Jump&#8221; by Aztec Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Jump&#8221; by Aztec Camera:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/COtZZmWKcRI\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Every so often it occurs to me that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SwYN7mTi6HM\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Jump&#8221; by Van Halen<\/a> 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.\u00a0 Also, it&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;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&#8217;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.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure &#8220;Jump&#8221; is actually great in this way, but Aztec Camera prove that the song, and they, are very good indeed through this interpretation.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Jump%22%20by%20Aztec%20Camera\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Jump&#8221; by Aztec Camera: &nbsp; Every so often it occurs to me that &#8220;Jump&#8221; by Van Halen is one of my favorite songs ever. I imagine it has to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Jump%22%20by%20Aztec%20Camera\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}