Hope
Up | 1998
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Bleepin and Bloopin

Glad I picked up that freee Podalski synth for this one. I had to dial in seveal sounds for this one - none of them sound like the original, but I think I got something for every part of the arrangement.

I knew that this one would be a challenge to sing, but I had no idea it would have phrases longer than “I Believe”. Michael doesn’t take a breath for very long streaches of this song, sometimes merging the end of one verse with the next. Plus the lyrics of this on e always hit me hard. Many vocal takes were ruined via sobbing.

This turned out to be a good excercise in the synths. I don’t think this will be up there with my favorite covers, but it’s forcing me to lerasn a lot about craftin synth sounds. Probably because I’m doing this and another song atonce away from my home studio. Another good test run for making these.

I’m really glad this song exists. It almost didn’t. Michael had this one back in the Monster days but something about it didn’t feel right. The other guys convinced him to put it on “Up”, but Michael realized too late that it was copying some melody and vocal motifs (“You want to…”) from Leonad Cohen’s Suzanne. He left it on but gave Leonard a writing credit. It’s tough to improve on a Leonard Cohen song. It’s only been done once by - this song*.

Every cover of “Hallelujah” has been rendered bad in retrospect through oversaturation. Sorry, Buckley fans.