Like a lot of other DJs at my college radio station, I gravitated to covers. It was commonplace in the nineteen-nineties, which is part of the reason labels we’re always pushing artists to include revamps of familiar songs on their albums. In a crowded marketplace, it was one of the surest ways to grab the fickle attention of student broadcasters. With limited spots on a playlist, anything with a whiff of the familiar held an appealing safety.

And yet I didn’t actively chase covers, not until years later. That’s when my splendid partner-in-all-things made it clear that she found covers even more irresistible than the most fevered devotees of the form among my radio brethren. My iTunes is heavily populated with cover songs, many of them residing there just for her, specifically and happily deployed whenever a day needs to be filled with rejuvenating music.

Yesterday marks fifteen years since she and I stood in the middle of a mountain-shaded valley and swapped rings. That seems as good a reason as any to devote this weekly bit of tuneful sharing to a cover song, a fairly lovely one at that. She’s the reason I have this song. Now you can have it, too.

Listen or download –> Kasey Chambers, “Better Be Home Soon”

(Disclaimer: I’m honestly not sure if this song is out of print or generally unavailable. Certainly the Crowded House original and some of Kasey Chambers’s own music can be procured from your favorite local, independently-owned record store in such a manner than it compensates both the artist in question and the proprietor of said shop. Maybe give that a try. Though I think the steadily-eroded principle of fair use makes it complete okay for me to share this track here, I will gladly remove it from my little corner of the digital world if asked to do so by any entity or individual with due authority to make such a request.)