1974 Ken Boothe: Everything I Own

To my mind, a good cover version is one that takes the material of the original, unpicks the seams and then re-fashions it into a new suit of clothes tailored for the new artist. West Coast MOR rockers Bread made for an unlikely source for supplying a tune to be given a reggae makeover, but Jamaican Ken Boothe manages to make 'Everything I Own' his own not simply by pasting a rocksteady rhythm over the words (you only have to listen to Boy George's 1987 attempt to appreciate that that's not nearly enough by itself to make it interesting), but by coming at it from a different angle entirely.

'Everything I Own' is a song of regret, but in place of the wistful aura of the original, Boothe adds a keen yearning to the song. Whereas original singer (and writer) David Gates sounded like a man quietly reminiscing to himself in an empty room, Boothe's vocal is more strung out and desperate, a man on his knees pleading to the back of someone walking away. Also, by deliberately/mistakenly changing the 'Everything' of the title to 'Anything', Boothe gives the lyric a more urgent and immediate air through asking them to take their pick from anything to hand rather than the predictable and empty sounding gesture of 'take it all'. The pedestrian shuffle of the backing only adds to the tension as Boothe painfully draws out every syllable with pliers to make sure his point is understood, but by the fadeout you know that it's falling on deaf ears. 'Everything I Own' is a downbeat single to be sure, but it's good to see the public acknowledging that reggae isn't all sun and could do misery as well as the next tortured singer/songwriter.