Kasey Chambers released “We’re All Gonna Die Someday” on her 1999 album “The Captain” in a more joyous take on the phrase recently used by Sen. Joni Ernst.
Recently, during a town hall event in Iowa, Sen. Joni Ernst was confronted about a Republican bill that would cut Medicaid. A voter argued that people would die as a result of the bill. Sen. Ernst replied, ““Well, we all are going to die.”
Following some outrage, Sen. Ernst subsequently doubled down on the adequacy of her response, seemingly mocking critics with a video of herself taken in a cemetery.
Sen. Ernst’s now infamous statement reminded me of a kinder use of the phrase in a song by Australian singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers. In “We’re All Gonna Die,” Chambers has a more joyous take on the reminder of death. She uses the phrase as a sing-a-long that ultimately reminds us mortals to enjoy life because we are all gonna die.
Well, it hurts down here on Earth, Lord; It hurts down here on Earth; It hurts down here ’cause we’re runnin’ out of beer; But we’re all gonna die someday.
“We’re All Gonna Die” appears on her outstanding 1999 album,The Captain.
Kasey Chambers began covering Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” on tour, recently releasing a live single due to demands from fans for the outstanding version of the song.
When you have a song so identified with one artist as Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,’ it becomes difficult to imagine anyone covering the song. One of the few artists who has the talent to take on such a song and make it her own, though is Australia’s Kasey Chambers. And she does it with a banjo.
Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” appeared on the soundtrack for his movie 8 Mile in 2002. In the film, the song is part biography of Eminem’s character B-Rabbit and part boast in encountering obstacles.
Kasey Chambers stays true to the original, starting off quieter and bulding until the full band joins her with drums and a raging electric guitar. Her voice, as always, is capable of being both tender and powerful, as she wrenches the emotion deep in the lyrics.
Check out Kasey Chambers’s version of “Lose Yourself” below. The performance takes place at the Civic Theater in Newcastle, Australia, the final show of her 2022 her recent Behind The Barricades tour. Due to demand from fans, Chambers released the performance as a single and created the video puthing together video taken by fans at the show.
Chambers explained how she connects during her performance of the song: ““I had no idea that audiences would respond to it like they have. Something else takes over my body when I play it and I get completely lost in it.” She added, “I can honestly say it’s the most I’ve ever connected to a performance of a cover song in my life.”
The married duo Joey + Rory created some beautiful music out of their short time together, including their version of Towne Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You.”
Like many people, I love Townes Van Zandt’s song “If I Needed You.” And through the years, I’ve enjoyed many beautiful covers of the song. Recently, I discovered a version by Joey + Rory, and it has quickly become one of my favorite versions of the song. But then discovering a little more about the singers Rory Lee Feek and Joey Feek makes this version even more heartbreaking.
There’s something about finding an artist new to you and then finding out they are no longer around. That is the case for me with my recent discovery of Joey + Rory.
The husband and wife duo married in 2002 after falling in love and knowing each other only a few months. Rory Feek had served in the marines and was a single dad and successful songwriter, and Joey Martin had been part of a talented musical family. As a musical team, they achieved some success after a friend suggested they try out for a musical competition as a team. In 2008, they were among the finalists for CMT’s competition Can You Duet. Later that year, they released their debut album, and several other albums soon followed.
“If I Needed You” appeared on Country Classics: A Tapestry of Our Musical Heritage, released in October 2014. That year was a big year for both Rory and Joey, as in February they welcomed their first child, a daughter who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Then, in May, Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
They initially thought that treatments had taken care of the cancer, but it returned in mid-2015. And Joey Feek passed away in March 2016 at the age of 40.
If I needed you, Would you come to me? Would you come to me? For to ease my pain; If you needed me, I would come to you; I would swim the seas, For to ease your pain.
In her final months, Joey did get to see the couple receive a Grammy nomination for their version of “If I Needed You,” and she also saw the release of their final album, a collection of gospel hymns that also featured a song they had previously released, “When I’m Gone.” In that song about a wife dying and leaving her husband, Joey sang, “And even though you love me still/ You will know where you belong/ Just give it time, we’ll both be fine/ When I’m gone.”
The background of the time period where “If I Needed You” was released adds a layer of poignancy and beauty, in the sense of how beauty often comes because everything is temporary. Joey’s voice reminds me of another of my favorite singers, Kasey Chambers (who also breaks your heart on her version of “If I Needed You” that appeared on her album Storybook in 2012).
The video for Joey + Rory’s version of “If I Needed You” also celebrates a life that started at the same time as another one was preparing to leave us, even if they did not know it at the time. Check it out.
Since Joey’s death, Rory Feek has been raising their daughter Indiana as a single father on the family farm. But he reports that he has help from many family members and that his daughter spends a lot of time in a community schoolhouse built on the property with contributions made after Joey’s passing. Rory reports that he has learned that Indy can be whatever she wants to be: “She just needs love, just like everybody else.”
Kasey Chambers released her new album, Bittersweet (2015). The album, produced by Nick DiDia, features a range of styles, including rockers and alt-country, that touch on various topics, including love and spiritual themes. Allmusic finds the songs “unpretentiously intelligent” while dealing “with matters of the heart and soul with unrelenting honesty.”
On the title track, the Australian singer-songwriter is joined by Bernard Fanning (former lead singer of the Australian rock band Powderfinger) in a duet about love and regret: “And I could list a thousand things / That’d make me take you back again / But I don’t really need you half as much / As I did then.” The video highlights the poignancy of new love evolving into long-term heartbreak by beginning with two young people in the role of Chambers and Fanning. Check out the official video for “Bittersweet.”
Singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers will release her seventh album, Bittersweet (2014), later this month, and she has already released a video for one of the songs from the new album, “Wheelbarrow.”
The video for “Wheelbarrow” was directed by Renny Wijeyamohan, who recorded parts of the video in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. The Australian singer’s song rocks out with electric guitars, while the video features a robbery by two lovers, as well as a wheelbarrow. Check it out.
Bittersweet, which is Chambers’s first solo album in four years, will be released on August 29.
What is your favorite Kasey Chambers song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(2015). The album, produced by Nick DiDia, features a range of styles, including rockers and alt-country, that touch on various topics, including love and spiritual themes. 