Vapour Trail

Photo by Joe Dilworth

Cover version of the month #116
Trespassers William covers Ride's Vapour Trail

Trust me #110 - Vapour Trail by Ride

I started revisiting, reading and writing about Ride's blissful Vapour Trail for my Trust Me series and playlist. I'm still going to add it to that playlist. However, while researching the song, I discovered a gorgeous slow burning cover by a band called Trespassers Williams, hence, Vapour Trail is added to my cover version of the month series and playlist. Read on!

Ride burst on to the independent music scene in 1990 with a trilogy of EP's and debut album Nowhere. Aged between 18-20, the band seemed to be in their own world. Andy Bell, Mark Gardner (guitars and vocals), Steve Queralt (bass) and Loz Colbert (drums) looked fantastic, like a real gang and the four friends had a clear vision for their sound and values. 

Many labels were in the race to sign Ride from early doors, but Creation Records was the label Ride wanted - The Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine being crucial factors. There is a great section on Creation chasing and getting Ride in the magnificent Creation book My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize by David Cavanagh.

Vapour Trail, the closing song on Nowhere, seems so perfectly formed. Magical. If Ride's EP's and much of their debut album had a wall of noise that marked them as shoegazers, Vapour Trail had more space, a string quartet and a crystaline, chiming 12-string riff that really highlighted the bands development and maturity.

The song rides in on warm chords and Andy Bell singing the first line before the band fall in behind him.

First you look so strong, then you fade away

The sun will blind my eyes, I'll love you anyway

Thirsty for your smile, I watch you for a while

You are a vapour trail, in a deep blue sky

There are only 2 verses, with Bell singing about a love that seems to be fleeting (like a vapour trail), while he wants more. Each verse is followed by a la, la, la, la, la refrain. i particularly like the third line in the second verse - Bell is all in.

Tremble with a sigh, glitter in your eye

You seem to come and go, I never seem to know

And all my time is yours as much mine

We never have enough time to show our love

"I remember writing the riff in a hotel room on a very early Ride tour. We were in a bed and breakfast type scenario, and I was sitting on a bed with an acoustic to get that four-chord pattern which is really very simple. It’s played on two 12-strings. People seem to be quite interested with the guitar sound on this record, if there are fades or effects, but there’s not; it’s just two 12-strings. It’s just one of those magical songs. That’s the one that everyone talks about on the album in my experience. These songs are the easiest to write and the ones that you don’t really think about at the time. It came out so easily and it has that effortless feel to it. I guess it is the one I’m most proud of from that era." Andy Bell, MTV Hive, 2011

The second refrain finishes just before the 2-minute mark and everything cuts to leave the guitars before the drums come crashing back in, bass underpinning everything. Then comes the gorgeous string quartet over the top, the guitars continue to chime, the drums are cool and the bass is holding it all. 

Ride are lost in the music and invite the listener to do the same, letting things flow for almost 2-minutes before the guitars and Loz's ferocious drumming cut to leave the string quartet to play the song out. Sublime! Heart-achingly beautiful.

As mentioned above, I've recently discovered a gorgeous slow burning cover of Vapour Trail by Trespassers William who released their version as a single in 2003. The song also featured on the Bella Union UK version of second album Different Stars, that was initially a self release in 2002.

Anna-Lynne Williams and Matt Brown are the two constant members in the band, who released three albums between 1999 and 2006. Cast, a compilation album of b-sides and rarities came out in 2012.

How on earth do you cover Vapour Trail?!

Well, Trespassers William don't just show their love for the song by playing and replicating it. Instead, they slow the whole thing down, it's a dreamy swoon. Anna-Lynne Williams has a voice that sounds like a secret being whispered in your ear. It’s fragile, melancholic, and utterly captivating. You can tell they've spent a lot of time with this song. 

Gentle and persistent piano, reverb-drenched vocals, distant echoes of slide(?) guitar, then a little jangle, before a solo is introduced over the top. Oooft this gives me the tingles.

If Ride's version is a teenage Andy Bell writing about the excitement of new love and infatuation, the Trespassers William cover is like a heart-aching reflection of a love that's long gone, but fondly remembered.

Utterly gorgeous. Enjoy.

Ride's original and the Trespassers William cover of Vapour Trail are added to my Everything Flows Cool Cover Versions playlist on Spotify which also features all of the songs listed below. Search for the title or CLICK HERE I've also added it to my Trust Me playlist.

Previous covers of the month blogs

1. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' 

2. Going Back To My Roots

3. Nirvana play The Vaselines

4. Slip Inside This House

5. Top 10 covers by Teenage Fanclub

6. Only Love Can Break Your Heart

7. Time For Livin' 

8. Sound and Vision 

9. All Along The Watchtower

10. I Am The Walrus 

11. Guiding Star

12. You’ll Never Walk Alone

13. Hurt

14. This Guy's In Love With You

15. I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine

16. California Soul

18. Wonder wall 

19. Dancing In The Dark

20. Always On My Mind

21. Ceremony

22. Heroes

23. Different Drum

24. Wild Horses

25. Respect

26. Mr Tambourine Man

27. I Heard It Through The Grapevine

28. Superstar

29. Twist and Shout

30. Purple Rain

31. Baker Street

32. Not Fade Away

33. Stop Your Sobbing

34. I Don't Want To Grow Up

35. Serious Drugs

36. Dancing With Myself

37. How Does It Feel To Feel?

38. Love Buzz

39. ABBA-esque
40. Jumpin' Jack Flash

41. Discoland

42. Varshons 2 by The Lemonheads

43. The Langley Schools Music Project
44. Witchi Tai To
45. Our Lips Are Sealed
46. Sunshine Of Your Love
47. Here Comes The Sun
48. I Think We're Alone Now
49. Don't Let Me Down 
50. It's Oh So Quiet
51. Alcoholiday 
52. Summer Holiday
53. Who Do You Think You Are?
54. Head On
55. Nothing Compares 2 U

56. Hey Jude

57. Seven Days Too Long

58. L.O.V.E Love

59. Into Your Arms

60. Heart Of Glass

61. Take Me To The River

62. We Can Work It Out 

63. Talking In My Sleep

64. Lola

65. Lost In Music

66. My Little Red Book

67. Isn't It A Pity

68. Walk On By

69. Walk Away Renee

70. Tainted Love

71. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

72. Listen The Snow Is Falling

73. Mrs Robinson

74. He's Gonna Step On You Again

75. In My Life

76. Caravan Of Love

77. The Only Way Is Up

78. Dancin' Round & Round

79. With A Little Help From My Friends

80. Killing Me Softly

81. Ain't No Mountain High Enough

82. Drop

83. Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay

84. Sympathy For The Devil

85. I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor

86. Love Will Tear Us Apart

87. Indian Rope Man + bonus Strawberry Fields Forever + This Wheels On Fire

88. Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

89. Love The One You're With

90. Cum On Feel The Noize

91. Addicted To Love

92. Valerie

93. Ride On Time

94. Let's Dance

95. It Must Be Love

96. I Fought The Law

97. For What It's Worth

98. Do Your Thing

99. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

100. Don't Leave Me This Way

101. Shout!

102. God Only Knows

103. The Last Time

104. Bridge Over Troubled Water

105. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart

106. Louie Louie

107. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

108-110. I'm A Loser, Yesterday and Beware of Darkness 

111. So You Say You Lost Your Baby

112. Kelly Watch The Stars

113. Association

114. Some Velvet Morning

115. If I Had A Boat

How Does It Feel To Feel

Ride formed in 1988 when four teenagers met through two different art colleges in Oxford. Andy Bell, Mark Gardner, Loz Colbert and Steve Queralt kind of knew each other but came together to form Ride and they quickly made their mark by self-recording and producing a demo tape with the songs Chelsea Girl and Drive Blind.

Ride looked, sounded and acted like a real band. Bell was a huge fan of independent guitar music and their demos quickly got into the hands of people like Jim Reid from the Marychain and word got out that they wanted to sign to Creation Records. The full story behind this and their subsequent rise to indie fame is brilliantly documented in the Creation book My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize.

Their early EP's thrilled music fans across the country, Ride then delivered a brilliant debut LP in the shape of Nowhere in 1990, following it swiftly with Going Blank Again in 1992. Both contained seminal tracks like Vapour Trail and Leave Them All Behind. Their sound was psychedelic with vocals lost in the mix of guitars at times, their performances led to NME and Melody Maker labelling them (and other bands) shoegazing.

Ride's Carnival Of Light album then came out in 1994. I loved it and remember watching their Glastonbury set live on the BBC and marveling at the way they looked and sounded. They sounded fresh, the guitars had been stripped back a little, the vocals were clearer and they seemed to be developing as songwriters. Little did I know that there was quite a bit of internal conflict between the band with Mark Gardner having all his songs on side 1 and Andy Bell taking side 2.

Side 2 also contained a cover - How Does It Feel To Feel? by the band The Creation (who the label was named after). The opening of guitars feeding back over a beat captivated me as an 18-year old and I still feel the sense of energy and urgency now.

It is a glorious noisy and psychedelic mess for 3-minutes and 45 seconds. Gardner and Bell's voices combine brilliantly to ask a series of questions through the verses before most important question becomes a the chorus.

How does it feel when you slide down a sunbeam

How does it feel bursting clouds on your way

How does it feel that the night is over

How does it feel never to sleep again

How does it feel to feel

How does it feel to feel

Ride's version is very true to the original. The feedback that 60's beat bands were discovering and exploring (notaby through the commercial success of The Who and The Kinks) is key to the energy of the song. It is garage psychedelic pop brilliance and Ride cover it beautifully.

Weather Diaries by Ride

Weather Diaries is the sound of 4 friends reconvening after a couple of decades of life experience and rediscovering the chemistry that once propelled them to the forefront of the UK indie scene. The fire has been relit and on the stand outs Ride sound fresh, vital, forceful and like they are having fun.

Erol Alkan produces and what a splendid job he does; there are the fantastic guitar sounds you would hope for (and expect) on a new Ride album, Andy and Mark's voices combine gloriously, but there is also a little pop edge that Alkan is perhaps responsible for.

The album opens with Lannoy Point, a groovy instrumental jam for over a minute before Mark Gardner returns on vocals singing about being wiser for time and a better sense can start again. It's a promising start - dreamy vocals, good groove and chiming guitars at all the right moments.

Erol Alkan's production comes to the fore on All I Want with a distorted sampled vocal at the start, the music is suddenly more psychedelic, the drums sound fantastic.  Ride still like to sing about feelings (see Lannoy Point) and some of their lyrics are still touched with the teenage innocence that won them so many fans back in the late 1980's early 1990's.

I can feel how you want me to feel

I can know what you want me to know

The backing vocals are pure early Ride and when Mark Gardner and Andy Bell combine in harmony then magical things can happen. I think back to their Glastonbury 1994 performance for their Carnival Of Light album when they just looked and sounded like the kind of band I wanted to be in.

Ride at Glastonbury in 1994

The title track is a beauty, especially when it hits the chorus and everything is lifted in that glorious psychedelic way that Ride can hit when on form, all swirling guitars and harmonies.

I'm unsettled by the weather, it's getting stranger, 

Should it be this good right now? Are we in some kind of danger?

Is this atmosphere just me, or is the sky too blue?

It's too perfect, something's got to give

I'm going inder, where are you?

Rocket Silver Symphony has a slow pulsing synth instrumental intro suddenly bursts into life after 2-minutes as Ride find their guitars and pedals. The synth then has a groove and the vocals are more poppy than normal for Ride, but then they return to classic Ride harmonies for the chorus.

Lateral Alice zips along at under 3-minutes and sounds more American than any previous Ride recording, even mentioning surfing!

Cali takes things further and is extended to over 6-minutes. Gardener and Bell sound brilliant, a standout on first listen and also a few listens down the line.

The album closes with White Sands, a song clearly about the bands break up and make up. It's only after a few minutes that it turns into a song that sounds remotely like Ride - the Ride we know.

The breath between twenty years

That same breath tonight

We'll always betray ourselves

Always hold back time

Weather Diaries has enough to satisfy old fans and win new fans and turn them on to their back catalogue. More importantly, Weather Diaries sounds like a band not only rediscovering themselves, but strengthening friendships.