Shawn Colvin: “Cover Girl” (Columbia)

For an album which consists of a woman singing already famous and not so famous songs, all of which were composed and sung originally by men, Cover Girl is a pretty clever title isn’t it? It could mean an exploitable front page pin-up, a co-conspirator in an act of betrayal or solidarity, a woman who wears a mask or, of course, one who sings other people’s tunes.

More than likely the title encompasses all of these shades of meaning and many more besides. Moreover, female compositions are excluded because Colvin says she finds it difficult to add anything to songs composed and sung by her fellow sex. On the other hand, when she sings a male-composed number, the said song can be turned on its head or, at least, develop other senses. The truth of the latter pronouncement can be heard to telling effect here and there on the thirteen ditties served up for feminine subversion, most obviously on Sting’s ‘Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic’.

Often equally true, however, is the reflection that a cover version is rarely as good as the original. To her credit, though, Shawn Colvin as much as admits the same when she declares that her interpretation of The Band’s ‘Twilight’ comes nowhere near Rick Danko’s. What then is the point of an album of covers?

Well, if you’re a Shawn Colvin fan then you love almost anything she tries her hand at and will be intrigued by her interpretations of the likes of Tom Waits’ ‘(Looking for) The Heart Of Saturday Night’ and ‘Ol’ 55’ (Waits is the only one represented twice).

Just as the masks we wear often reveal more than they conceal so the cover versions a singer performs can also tell us much about the subject’s state of mind. It’s as if Colvin is aware of this herself. ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ mightn’t be a patch on Dylan’s intensely intoned original but it does suggest that even though Colvin claims she’s relatively happy at last there still remains a vulnerable core to her love.

Each track is also accompanied by a short note on the whys and wherefores of its inclusion. Admittedly there are no sensational personal confessions in these little accounts but what does emerge is a sincere love of music and a generous admiration for her contemporaries and precursors. Besides, Colvin’s inclusion of Steve Earle’s small-town elegy ‘Someday’ and Jimmy Webb’s classic ‘If Only These Walls Could Speak’ could bring two great songwriters to the attention of people who normally might not be aware of them. A point which could be even more forcefully maintained in the case of her reworking of Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’, which gives particular emphasis to the lyrical gifts of Mr David Byrne.

One of the lesser known offerings, ‘One Cool Remove’ by friend, Greg Brown, which features a duet with Mary Chapin Carpenter, sums up this project. It seems like a nice idea, at first, to gain some distance from one’s self through performing the songs of others but ultimately there’s no escape from one’s feelings and desires and there just ain’t no killing the blues.

Indeed, you could say that Cover Girl is truly an album that can be judged by its cover(s).

• Patrick Brennan.