Mark Seymour has covered the Leonardo’s Bride hit ‘Only When I’m Sleeping’ as part of the celebration of Mushroom Records 50 years.
Mark says, “The great difficulty for me was to get the tone right. Abby (Dobson) has a character voice. She brings everything to the table; what I call real soul. The crack, the quaver and the hurt … Initially, I tried to translate, to soften, to bring my voice to the same place. To try to sound like Abby. This was a mistake. To do a cover well, authenticity lies in the capacity to live inside your own condition as you sing someone else’s words, which isn’t something I often do. To own the song. To draw on my own inherent character. To sing proudly with truth.”
‘Only When I’m Sleeping’ reached no. 4 in Australia for Leonardo’s Bride in 1997. The song was written by guitarist Dean Manning after an argument with Abby. “Michael Gudinski and his team at Mushroom Records and Mushroom Publishing changed the course of my life,” Abby says. “Michael and Mushroom backed us all the way. He was always so sweet to me, and always told me I was special.”
The movie ‘Ego: The Michael Gudinski Story’ will premiere during the Melbourne International Film Festival in August.
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