The Pretenders Chrissie Hynde mingles jazz grooves and psychedelic experimentation on her new cover of the Kinks 1967 song No Return.
The track opens with a wash of static, building to a Bossa nova drum pattern and atmospheric piano. If I could see/ Just how lonely my life would be/ If you passed me by and said farewell/ And there is no return, Hynde gently croons. Stars would shine no more/ I would walk up and down this lonely room/ I would have friends, but be alone/ For there is no return. The piece grows stranger as it progresses, slowly crescendoing into a spiral of keyboards, strings, woodwinds and processed vocal loops.
Hynde previously recorded two songs written by the Kinks Ray Davies: The Pretenders covered the bands 1964 cut Stop Your Sobbing for their self-titled debut record in 1980, and they tackled I Go to Sleep a Davies-penned single released by the Applejacks in 1965 for 1981s Pretenders II. (Davies is the father of Hyndes oldest daughter, Natalie.)
Despite her obvious love of the Kinks music, Hynde told Billboard she wasnt really familiar with No Return before producer Marius de Vries selected the song to include on her upcoming covers album, Valve Bone Woe. She also admitted it never occurred to [her] to run the song by Davies. The albums not out, so I guess he hasnt heard it, but I have no idea, she said. I can only imagine any songwriters happy when someone covers their song why shouldnt they be? Even if its bad, theyre still covering your song.
The jazz-flavored, 14-track Valve Bone Woe features Hyndes interpretations of songs by Charles Mingus, the Beach Boys, Nick Drake, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra and Rodgers and Hammerstein, among others.