Of the three of you who might read this blog, two may remember that the raison-d’etre of the mighty bowlingatvincent.com span round the sport/art axis, pret-ty much alternately. Meaning I *really did* try to write something sporty then arty.

This I think was more about gentle inclination than actual cunning planning – although I reckon I was conscious that no fekker on the planet was writing on M U then Frieda Kahlo. That minor dawning was about as close as I’ve ever gotten to Marketing , or Social Meedya Planning. Anyway – apologies – I’ve drifted from that aspiration.

I’m not in a position to promise any meaningful kind of comeback; just that I’m conscious of the drift and *would like* to address it to some extent. (In the (allegedly) Real World, I’m writing another book and pouring most of the creative energy into that… so don’t expect any progress on this for some months. However).

We all have faaaar tooo many WhatsApp groups, yes? I certainly do – and I almost hate it. Who are these people who feel they have to set up a separate group for every micro-section of every ‘team’ or department? (Answer; these people are YOU!) Bollocks. They are bollocks, most of them.

I have eight hundred but need two WhatsApp groups. Maybe three, including family. One for cricket and the other for keeping shit together; real shit, like heart and soul and meaning of everything. (Thankyou, lads). This WhatsApp is the greatest and funniest and richest and most life-enhancing WhatsApp group in the history of the universe. Like yours is, I hope.

One of the four individuals within this magbloodynificent posse sent a Spotify covers version-thang over. Most of it was instantly of us. Meaning it was surefire gorgetastic and appropriate: an easy win. Some of it, less so. I’m going to write about one of the tracks.

We all grew up in and through punk and the glorious aftermath. Joy Division, Bunnymen, Costello, Weller, Fall, Magazine, Clash, Cure, Gang of Four, Talking Heads. Later Pil, Specials and all that malarkey. One of us – *cheesy grin emoji* – still hasn’t grown out of the phase predicated on anger. But guess what? I’m writing about K D Lang.

It was a cover, yes? Guess which one?

Nope – or yeaaaah! – A Case of You: the Joni Mitchell song.

This is not my territory. I’m deeply (punkily?) suspicious of the world of melody, of beautiful projection – of choons. Realise this is utter cobblers, the immediate exclusion or de-legitimisation of everything Paul McCartney and Almost Everybody ever did… but still hold onto that ultrapunk notion that making cute, beautiful-sounding things led us to the wall-to-wall masturbatory shite that was the seventies super groups and most of commercial Pop Music.

Us Angry Bastards are still right to be anti-airhead, anti-vacancy, anti-conciliatory: it’s still not right, not enough, to be a music-maker who wants to be adored for their wizardry or musicality. Not when the world needs improving so much. But hey; I’ve gone off on one…

Torch songs are not my territory. Great, tuneful singing rarely moves me.

A Case of You is about Mitchell’s fine, fine songwriting… but mainly it’s about the singing. It’s next-level gorgeous. Lang can sing but here she is into the sublime, crossing and dipping her toes into the stream that is the piano.

Things ease more than they twinkle: the vocal is parallel then sliding or surging ahead. It’s rich and melancholic but (critically?) somehow ego-less. Lang and the sound crew produce a quiet triumph of technical excellence where the soulfulness is in no sense neutered by ‘performance skills’. (In fact the fekkers make it work, goddammit!) This is High Torch but still manages to be risky and human and genuinely poignant.

Try singing it. The spacing – and the range, obvs – are a challenge. Lang is masterful. It’s a dollop of perfection, the kind of thing you want aliens want to discover when they land next August and find we’ve self-incinerated. Because it’s about us. Lang’s singing is Peak Expression of our capacity to relate and to feel. It captures and vouches for us.

The more you listen the more you hear a very rare mix of control and luxuriant risk. It’s full of blood and wine and maybe damage. A Case of You is not, I think going to change the world but it passes the Punk’s Test for value. It’s a great, full human statement: a complex story we don’t need to unpick. I want those space-travellers to find it and nod in approval.

We humans were lousy but we also did this.