One Night Stand: 'Burning Down the House'

Six Feet Under on DVD tonight tipped me to the fact that Bonnie Raitt covered "Burning Down the House."

Now, I love Bonnie Raitt. And the choice of this cover, which is a "Something to Talk About" sort of deal imposed on a multigenerational party scene, makes sense. But it only served to remind me that you do not fuck with the original.

I was not really into New Wave or whatever you would have called this in the '80s.

It was 1983, I was fully into Prince. But you could not deny the awesome weirdness of this song. My parents, who were in their 30s at the time and were still the barometer of cool to me, grooved to this. We may not have identified with it directly, but we knew that it was cool.

The thumping drums on the long outro are a tip-off. It's your sign that the '80s are leaving without you.

Music: "Burning Down the House"