The credits for Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” album are finally trickling in, and we’re learning the secret sauce: real songs.
The real songs are by Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson, Linda Martell, Willie Nelson. The anchors of the album are all solid songs from the past that Beyonce reinterprets so well. They show off her voice to its best.
But what about that opening track, “American Requiem”? I had skipped over it a bit because of all the track about “Blackbird” and “Jolene.” Buried in the credits for “American Requiem” is one name of the twelve songwriters that shows that the song is based on a classic from the 1960s.
Indeed, the music for “American Requiem” is a reworked version of Stephen Stills’ “For What It’s Worth.” That’s why is it’s so catchy. It has different lyrics, but the song would not be singable without the familiar melody Stills introduced 60 years ago with his band, Buffalo Springfield.
This is called an “interpolation” these days. I call it a cover with different words. Beyonce and Jay Z have slapped their names on it, along with Jon Batiste.
There’s no “American Requiem” without the original American requiem by Stills. That song crystallized the resistance to the Vietnam war among young people, and the fight for civil rights. It’s all in the key verse:
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
Let’s hope Stills’s reps got the bulk of that publishing, in perpetuity.
