Cover Me, Eddie Berman and Laura Marling: Dancing in the Dark

Some songs are indelibly imprinted on or by the context in which you first hear them. For me, Eddie Berman and Laura Marling’s version of “Dancing in the Dark” is a textbook example.

Last month, my wife and I escaped the cold and rainy Pacific Northwest for a long weekend in Rome. The Eternal City turned out to be only a tad warmer than the Emerald City and not at all drier, but sometimes a change of scenery is all you need.

On our second of three nights, we happened upon an absolutely spectacular amaro bar called Il Marchese, and because I’m a huge amaro fan, I couldn’t pass it by.

The bar’s inventory was jaw-dropping: with over five hundred varieties of wonderfully bitter herbaceous quaffs on hand (including several vintage bottles older than I am), I couldn’t begin to figure out where to start, so I placed myself in the hands of our knowledgeable bartender, who proceeded to ply us with nine different concoctions from several decades to try.

About a half-hour in to our amazing tasting experience, I was feeling pretty good. We’d found a warm, quiet bar to escape the cold, rainy evening; I had my wife by my side; we had a friendly and attentive bartender before us who was excited to share his considerable knowledge; a wonderful meal awaited us; and I was feeling pleasantly toasty from the amaro.

And then I suddenly noticed what was playing on the bar’s stereo, and the evening became perfect.

As you can hear in the video above, there was a lovely acoustic cover of “Dancing in the Dark” playing, and it was one I’d never heard before.

Thanks to music recognition software, I was able to fingerprint it on the spot, so I share with you now the soundtrack from my perfect evening: Eddie Berman and Laura Marling performing Bruce Springsteen’s biggest hit.

Is it a great cover?

It holds too much meaning for me to judge it objectively, so I can’t say. I just know that I love it.

Ironically, it turns out Berman is a fellow Pacific Northwesterner. I may have had to go all the way to Rome to discover him, but I’ll be at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle to see him when he swings by in January.

I hope he plays “Dancing in the Dark.”