Quote:
Originally Posted by WildHearted
See, I think The Chain really falls short without the harmonies. To my ears, the melody of the verses is in a cyclical kind of way, very defined by the harmony. In the sense that it's difficult to pinpoint who is even singing the lead line because all of the lines are so dependent on one another. During the chorus, it's not so much the harmony but the echoing of his lines by the girls that adds to the build of the song (along with all of the instrumentation, of course).
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I think the beauty of
FM's Chain is the voices. And it's so good when they do it, that it doesn't even sound worthwhile to me when Lindsey, Stevie, Sharon and Lori do it without Christine. You not only need the layers of voices, but you need the variation in tone between the voices to make it work. I think they got it very right with Beautiful Child, but they have never captured it with The Chain. That's why I liked the LBT version with Lindsey so much more than I like it in concert now.
However, as a quite different song which captures something else entirely, I think he could pull it off solo. It's not going to mean what it means with FM, but it explores a different element and I think that's what an acoustic song
should do. I don't think it should try to replicate a group's version of the song, but should give you something completely different. Lindsey's raw version did that for me and when he's singing it solo, the chain
has been broken. Psychologically, I like that spin on the song.
You know there's a slowed down version of
Jolene that's been circulating on the internet and it just made me see how Dolly Parton's voice actually does a disservice to all of her songs. It's funny the little things you can do to give or take gravitas from something.
Michele