Review’s Isolation Room: Mark Seymour covers a Dave Dobbyn love song
The Dave Dobbyn ballad appears regularly in Seymour’s live performances, and he sees the act of covering songs as fuel for his own creativity | WATCH
Nearly six months ago, Mark Seymour was performing at Rod Laver Arena before a crowd of thousands who had gathered at the state memorial for his friend and music industry colleague Michael Gudinski.
After a stunning version of the Hunters and Collectors song Throw Your Arms Around Me with Vika and Linda Bull, Seymour rejoined the stage for a finale group cover which saw him singing the Easybeats song Good Times alongside one of the nation’s greatest pop stars.
“I remember going, ‘F..k, I’m standing next to Kylie Minogue! I can’t believe this is happening!’” he told The Weekend Australian with a laugh. “She and I would never cross paths in a million years. It was so strange, and I just thought, ‘We’ve got to make this work.’”
“No-one had given her a mic, so I remember spending half that time leaning down, singing into the mic together,” he said. “It was a bit of a professional highlight of my career, getting an opportunity to do that.”
For many who work in the live music industry, those good times at Gudinski’s big send-off on March 24 seem sadly out of reach during the extended NSW and Victorian lockdowns, where gatherings of any size are currently prohibited.
For Review’s exclusive Isolation Room video series, the Hunters and Collectors frontman has recorded a beautiful solo version of Beside You, one of his favourite songs by New Zealand musician Dave Dobbyn, from his home on the Mornington Peninsula.
“I love the melody and the shape of the song, but that third verse really gets me,” said Seymour. “It’s just an incredibly poignant love song. It’s a real concession to his own vulnerability, and I just think that idea of being able to be that strong as an artist that you can acknowledge where you are, and where you stand.”
“I think it really appeals to the psychology of being alone – and that’s why I thought that would be a great song to do now, in the social conditions we’re in at the moment,” he said.
Beside You appears regularly in Seymour’s live performances with his band The Undertow, and the singer-songwriter sees the act of covering songs as fuel for his own creativity.
“The thing about great songs is that they have an inherent mysterious structure, where all those big questions are brought together, magically, somehow,” he says.
“But if you sing it yourself, what makes a great song work is that you become part of the psychology of the song, and it guides you,” says Seymour. “That’s really good for me to do as a songwriter myself: I can step into someone else’s shoes, the song gives me a map, and I go, ‘Where’s this going to take me?’”
To rewatch our Review’s Isolation Room archive, click here.
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