Laura remains one of Natasha Khan’s most distinctive and iconic songs, and her Bat For Lashes performance of the song is one of the finest moments on one of my absolute favourite albums.
I’d argue it takes either guts, or a lack of self-awareness, to take on this kind of material for a cover. Thankfully, Sofi Gev, real name Hannah Lovelady, demonstrates plenty of the former in her impassioned take on the song.
For some reason, I find myself thinking about something I read years ago, when Def Leppard claimed there are two types of cover version — those that attempt to make a carbon copy, and those that do something entirely new. The former always seemed kind of pointless to me, but Hannah’s version of Laura actually falls somewhere between those two states, with a performance that maintains the atmosphere of the original but changes things just enough to make it a compelling alternative.
The Bat For Lashes original of Laura is a stripped back performance — Khan’s vocal like shattered glass and teardrops falling onto the keys of the heartbreaking piano melody that propels the song forward. In contrast, Sofi Gev sympathetically adds a little additional vocal detail – an additional vocal harmony portraying the familiar piano refrain from the original, and layered overdubs creating a bit more depth. Strings also play a more prominent role in Lovelady’s performance, and generally, it feels a little fuller. It’s not better — but it’s just different, and an interesting alternative to experience.
The thing that struck me about Hannah’s version, however, is the way she hits the central line in the chorus: “Laura, you’re more than a superstar”. Rather than delivering it as Khan does, the word “superstar” initially delivered at one pitch and then dropping slightly, Sofi Gev seems to deliver it differently, descending further. If you aren’t intimately familiar with the original you might totally miss it, but as someone who has listened to Laura a lot, it actually led me to reappraise the intention of the line. Whenever I have heard Bat For Lashes’ version of Laura, I interpreted the line as to mean that the subject of the song is, to the performer, more famous and significant than a superstar. In contrast, Gev’s performance introduces more darkness to the notion of what a superstar even is — like it isn’t enough, that the role of a superstar somehow saps the subject of their humanity. Hannah’s performance feels like it is deliberately derogatory about the notion of stardom, that the word superstar is, in fact, a pejorative. I actually now suspect that is likely what Khan originally meant by that line, but it is only in hearing Gev’s performance (itself no doubt coloured by her own reading) that I felt that.
It’s not often that a cover version actually makes me think more about the original, and for that Sofi Gev deserves credit. It is clear that she approached this cover with the utmost respect, as reflected in Hannah’s description of her approach to the song:
“This cover comes out of my love and respect for one of the greatest female artists of our time, Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes. I wanted to stay true to the original but also put my own personality into it. We used a French Connection analog synth to produce the song's signature piano melody, and added Moog bass, strings and electric guitar to add character and emotion. I could never have improved on the original, but I hope listeners enjoy it and that it leads more people to Natasha's music.”
Check out Sofi Gev’s cover of Laura below:
