Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“Why do we need to hear another cover of a song someone else did?” Prince told Billboard in 2013, referencing the Maroon 5 cover. “Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what’s already there.”There are two points worth noting here. The first is that Maroon 5’s version is certainly not a paint-by-numbers reproduction of the original. It’s closer to the kind of all-star jams that feature on Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny broadcast on the BBC each New Year: a big-band swing version, complete with call-and-response vocals and endless solos, and stretched out to seven minutes. If the purpose of a cover is to change the song, they certainly did that.The second point is that “Kiss” itself did not emerge as a perfectly formed Prince original: it was the result of successive rebuildings on his original foundations. He recorded a demo of the song at Sunset Sound studios in Hollywood, on April 27 1985, played on acoustic guitar, his voice in its normal register rather than falsetto. It sounds more like a country blues than stripped-back funk. And then he gave the demo away.Let us know your memories of ‘Kiss’ in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: NPG; Virgin; China; Beeswing; Sabrina Salerno; Love Positions/Half A Cow
