mixtape maestro (2.0)

If Emmy The Great’s fall of ’08 gem “We Almost Had A Baby” had been delivered by some R&B diva-to-be, the ’50′s-flavored ball of melodic sugar in which she narrates a twisted revenge fantasy of getting pregnant by some heart-crushing ex simply so she “could have something above (him)” would have been answered back via numerous rapper-laced remixes by now, with many emcees excitedly competing to see who could drop the cruelest rhymes about how she’s nothing but a loony groupie chick.

Alas it wasn’t, so the only response Emmy’s awarded arrives from this year-later semi-cover by Micah P. Hinson, a crit-approved, indie-rock singer-songwriter who spends the first half of the song gruffily mimicking the original’s lyrics from the opposite perspective.

Mid-way through though, Hinson changes course, running off on his own tangent to flesh out the male perspective. Unfortunately, he can’t really match the colorful kookiness of Emmy’s pen, only able to contribute a half-hearted semi-apology about how he was “only a kid” when they had their fling and really hadn’t even thought of her at all after they went their separate ways.

Boo. Micah’s rendition may still be one of the highlights of his latest album, the excellently titled all-covers set, All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers (featuring compelling takes on overly-familiar tunes from the likes of The Beatles, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra), but as far as creative input goes, if he wasn’t going to deliver a straight-forward remake, he could have repped for the fella’s a lot better than he does here.

Hopefully some other indie dude, hungry mixtape rapper (or, hell, R. Kelly) will one day come across the Emmy original and give it the true juicy soapy response it begs for.

DL: “We Almost Had A Baby (Emmy The Great Cover)” (alt)

Below, catch the video for Micah’s cover of “Are You Lonesome Tonight”:

Are You Lonesome Tonight

Micah P. | MySpace Video

With it’s dream-like symphony of ’50′s pop twinkle, angelic girl group harmony, and singer-songwriter Emmy The Great’s cutesy baby-doll vocal coating the ears with such cavity-inducing sweetness, a casual listen to “We Almost Had A Baby” will surely have one immersed within the fond remembrances of the pure, naive days of early teen-dom. But once you really tune in beneath it’s swaying surface to the words tenderly floating out of Em’s mouth, the realization quickly hits that at “Baby”‘s center, there’s very little actual sweetness being put forth.

A deeper dig reveals Emmy to be a burgeoning nutcase so longing after a music-playing lover that helped transitioned her from girl to woman before rudely ditching her, that she wishes that she could have been impregnated with his child during that one period-less scare a while back so that their lives would then forever be intertwined. “I would have liked to have something above you,” she coos, salivating over the idea of getting the last laugh after being so cruelly burnt by him over and over again. Caressing her stomach as if by that action alone, she could magically conjure up his father-ed fetus, she imagines phoning him up in the middle of his country-western tour with the “happy” news just so she could dish out the alert that “I’m in control and I’ll let you know/ If you have to come and choose a name”.

Emmy The Great? With this wry, heart-bruised lament wrapped in candy-coated, malt shoppe décor, she’s more like Emmy The (lovable) Psycho!

From her upcoming 2009 debut, First Love, on Close Harbour.

DL: “We Almost Had A Baby” (alt) (snatch the 7″ here!)

Below, check out the video for “Seattle”, a collaboration between Emmy and the latest musical alias of Norman Cook, The Brighton Port Authority: