Covers of “1979”

I woke up from a catnap on the couch with my phone in my hand, open to the YouTube Music app, “1979 (Smashing Pumpkins cover)” — not playing, but all ready for me to tap the play button. I thought, “What’s that? I don’t want that!” and closed the app. I went back to sleep and had the dream I posted about in “Riff Raff the Rapper’s intellectual property.”

Some of my wording in that post was ambiguous and was misunderstood by Bill, so I had to clarify in the comments. It had to do with the two different ways of pronouncing the name Ralph, which I described as rhyming respectively with safe and — because I couldn’t think of any other rhyme — with Alph the sacred river from the Coleridge poem Kubla Khan.

Later in the day, that made me think of an old blog called Ralph the Sacred River which I used to check occasionally ages ago. I looked it up and found the latest post, “Ralphies 2024.” It has this to say about the best music of that year:

I got into listening to acoustic versions of rock hits; among them I give high marks to "1979" by Freedom Fry (Smashing Pumpkins cover) and "Wonderwall" by Ryan Adams (Oasis cover).

Is that the same “1979” cover that was somehow open on my phone when I woke up? I don’t know. I didn’t notice the artist’s name, and I can’t find it in my history because I didn’t actually play it. Still a sync either way.

I don’t know that song, and when I looked up the lyrics nothing struck me as noteworthy. Pumpkins are a sync theme, though, as are covers. Bill, Leo, and I were all born in 1979.