“Bang, Bang” (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Daniela Andrade, Monday, April 19, 2021

This is the story of three women and how they interpreted their interpretation of a dream pop classic. The version I chose is a cover, which resembles a cover of this song. Until today, I thought that this song was a Nancy Sinatra original. Played in the opening scene of Kill Bill Vol. 1, the Bride is shot and left for dead outside a dusty El Paso chapel. This scene kicks off an other delicious installment of Tarantino's brand of gratuitous violence and overall badassery that the filmmaker is known for. However, if we're looking for the original tune, think a little more sixties psychedelia with more instrumentation. Finally, the version that goes to the YouTube playlist, by a YouTube-famous Canadian-Honduran singer, Daniela Andrade. This song with its simple song structure and easy lyrics, packs a lot of heat.

I WAS FIVE AND HE WAS SIX. Written by her husband, Sonny Bono, "Bang Bang" (My Baby Shot Me Down) was one of Cher’sfirst hits, and her first platinum single. Now, there are actually very few Cher songs that I know. In 1999, the year that I really started listening to the radio, her song "Believe" was the number one hit of the year. It was one of the first songs to use auto-tune, and it's truly an artifact of the day. The other song that comes to mind is her duet with her husband "I Got You Babe," which was a more folk hippie song. Cher was a person my parents knew, practically a wholesome figure--I think--from the sixties and then somewhere along the way discovered corsets, acting in inspiration movies about children with disfiguration, and made a hilarious appearance in 2003's Stuck on You, playing a self-indulgent version of herself, at one point offering Matt Damon's character a handkerchief with Cher embroidered on it. Cher is a pioneering woman in music, who cultivated the career that she wanted. Her ex-husband, record execs, nobody was going to stop her. They tried to shoot her down, but like the Bride in Kill Bill, she has proven quite resilient.

SEASONS CAME AND CHANGED THE TIME. The daughter of a legend, Nancy Sinatra rose to fame on her own volition. Sinatra was everything Lana Del Rey has built her career trying to emulate. The sparse guitar reminiscent of an old 007 film (Sinatra would go on to sing the theme for You Only Live Twice), the reverb meets the lyrics and makes the song much more haunting than Cher's original version. When YouTube singer-songwriter Daniela Andrade covered the song, she channels Sinatra's version more than Cher's, only in Andrade's version, it's a keyboard/organ effect. I happened across Andrade a few years ago when I was on a kick to find the best covers by YouTubers. Her versions of "Feel Good Inc." and "Summertime Sadness" were pretty great, too. The singer has gone on to have a rich career in her own songwriting, exploring themes in her Latin-American heritage, moving from Honduras to Canada at a young age, and a strict spiritual upbringing in which her Seventh-day Adventist mother restricted secular music from their home. But her early YouTube covers show her fans some of her influences.

Cher 1966 version: