Courtney Barnett has both announced a collaboration with Jack White, and, in the same breath (er, press release) shared one track from it. On October 16, they’ll release a single for Third Man Records’ Blue Series consisting of two tracks — with “Boxing Day Blues Revisited” as the A-Side. (“Boxing Day Blues” was, itself, a track on her most recent LP, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit).
The B-Side, a cover of the Boys Next Door (the early name of Nick Cave/Mick Harvey/Roland S. Howard’s band The Birthday Party) song, “Shivers” was shared today.
Though the song of course wasn’t written by Barnett, it fits perfectly into her catalogue of boredom-and-malaise-fuled observations and diary-ish confessions of dissatisfaction. (And it turns out Barnett had previously expressed her passion for this dispassionate track.) “I’ve been contemplating suicide/But it really doesn’t suit my style/So I think I’ll just act bored instead,” she deadpans in the song’s first moments — and if you didn’t already know, you’d have no reason to think this song didn’t originate from Barnett.
Listen:
Here’s the also-spectacular original: