Songs for a Blue Guitar

Sometimes change for the sake of change can be fun. Early last year we recorded a version of the Red House Painters song "Have You Forgotten". It's a slow song with a beautiful melody line and vivid lyrics - so we did a simple stripped-down cover version with just vocals, an electric guitar, and a drum track. At the time we resisted the temptation to "over-produce" and left it for what it was.

Fast forward to the cold of January 2004 - Lots of time spent indoors (time that probably should have been spent writing originals, but oh well). We had the itch to revisit "Have You Forgotten", and re-do it in a completely different way. So here is the end result - the "remix" version, about as different as possible from our first attempt (which is also included for reference).

Interestingly enough, the Red House Painters themselves actually have 2 different versions of the song (albeit a lot more similar than our 2 versions). The first is a simple acoustic rendition on their 1996 album Songs for a Blue Guitar. The second is a slower, full-band version that appears on the 2001 soundtrack to the film Vanilla Sky. As we've mentioned here before Songs for a Blue Guitar is one of our favorite albums, definitely worth checking out.

Jan '04 Remix: Julie & Matt - Have You Forgotten (PS Remix)
Feb '03 Version: Julie & Matt - Have You Forgotten

Let us know what you think!