Strumming my pain with his fingers

This week I will be comparing "Killing me softly with his song" by Lori Lieberman and the cover done by The Fugees.

 

Musicality

I assumed the original was by Roberta Flack, but after researching more so about the origins of the song I realized that I was wrong. The original by Lori Lieberman is much softer and more soothing. The Fugees have a better tempo and emphasize more on their lyrics. Lieberman's version is played more so with a guitar. The Fugees' version is played more so with drums in the background. Lieberman's version sounds more like a lullaby with the sound of the guitar and her soothing vocals to back her up. Lieberman's version has a bit of a country feel with the singing whereas The Fugees' version has more of a hip hop feel.

  

Lyrics

There isn't much of a difference between the two songs as a whole. The Fugees switched some of their lyrics around, I believe they were going off of Roberta Flack's version rather than the original. Their first stanza is "Strumming my pain with his fingers/ Singing my life with his words/ Killing me softly with his song/ Killing me softly with his song/ Telling my whole life with his words/ Killing me softly with his song." In Lori Lieberman's version that is the second stanza not the first.

There are a few more stanzas in the original song than in the cover. I'm not quite sure what the song is trying to say. The most powerful line is the title of the song itself. I believe the song is trying to talk about how some songs just touch people and remind them of their own life. Especially the lines: "I felt he found my letters/ And read each one out loud." The only other difference between the two different versions is the title of the song itself. The original is called "Killing me softly with his song" whereas the cover is called "Killing me softly." 

One of the stanzas in the original that is not a part of the cover is: "He sang as if he knew me/ In all my dark despair/ And then he looked right through me/ As if I wasn't there/ But he was there, this stranger/ Singing clear and strong." This stanza does seem more like a reiteration of one of the other stanzas. These lyrics are a bit more powerful though with words like "dark despair" and "looked right through me." This stanza is just as powerful and suggestive of depression as the words that are repeated in both versions "Killing me softly with his song." 

Overall I prefer the cover over the original because I'm not a very big fan of country. The original has too much of a country feel for my liking. I'm much more familiar with The Fugees' version and Roberta Flack's version than I am with the original. I'm actually really shocked that the original is done by a Caucasian woman, because I'm so used to thinking of it as a song sung by an African American. It was hard for me to imagine anyone else singing it aside from those versions.