Neko Case, the American-Canadian (?) alternative country artist, songwriter, and former drummer, released an album in 1997 called The Virginian, along with her band, Her Boyfriends. Inconspicuously rounding out the song list is a twangy version of Misfire, from Queen's third album, Sheer Heart Attack.
She definitely takes the song into the “bride’s dress and cowboy boots” direction—wait, that was k.d. lang’s early persona—but you get the idea. I guess the original does have a country feel to it, so Case didn’t have to inject a completely different energy into it. Her rendition could be described as being akin to Dwight Yoakam’s countrified version of CLTCL, from the Gap ads a few years back.
John must have smiled when he heard the cover version. I view the song as his formal initiation into the band because it was his first to appear on a Queen album. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first song of his ever to get recorded and released, so to have an artist like Case go back through the Queen catalogue and select his first attempt must have been flattering, to say the least.
Now, if we could only get Michael Bublé to do a cover of My Melocholy Blues…
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