When I first put this website together, I only had a handful of videos on my YouTube channel. One was a cover of Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen, a couple were some of my own original songs, and the last one was an acoustic cover of Smoke by Brian Fallon - who is the lead singer in the wonderful The Gaslight Anthem. It seems strange that it has taken me this long to get an acoustic cover of National Anthem up, as it is one of my favourites to perform.
Anyone who had attempted covers of Gaslight tends to discover that Fallon uses different tunings quite regularly. Indeed, his version of National Anthem is in a dropped tuning but I was lucky enough to find some chords on Ultimate Guitar that allowed me to play the song in standard tuning with no capo.
What's lovely about the song is it's picky intro that has a tenderness to it which then gets reinforced by the delicate lyrics. My particular favourite is:
“With everything discovered just waiting to be known, What's left for God to teach from his throne, and who will forgive us when he's gone?”
The strings in the background are splendid but unfortunately I didn't have an orchestra available for the Chris Olson Music channel (one day maybe) so it's just my stripped back rendition. Fortunately, as an acoustic singer in the UK I'm quite used to this situation.
My performance was filmed at rehearsal space in Croydon The Front Room, an up-and-coming live music venue that is great for indie musicians like me. I'm hoping to record more stuff here and maybe do a few shows in the future so stay tuned for that. You can see more of my live performances at The Front Room on, you guessed it, my YouTube channel. Search for my Acoustic Covers UK playlist!
So, without further ado, here's my acoustic cover of National Anthem by The Gaslight Anthem.
Enjoy...