What’s That Sound? Martha And The Muffins Show Their Enduring “Worth” With A Bold Take On A Buffalo Springfield Classic
When a band has been around for nearly half a century, you don’t necessarily expect their music to carry any particular message beyond “Yep, we’re still alive.” The legendary Martha and the Muffins are a blessed exception: Their jaw-dropping new single shows they’re less concerned with their own survival than with everybody else’s.
With their radical reworking of a certain anti-violence perennial, the venerable Toronto-based group have paid full respect to the source material while simultaneously contorting it into a bone-chilling lament that couldn’t be more pertinent to the mortal dangers of today.
“Not only is Buffalo Springfield’s 1966 classic ‘For What It’s Worth’ timeless in its own right, but Stephen Stills’ poignant lyrics are more relevant than ever,” M+M mainstays Martha Johnson and Mark Gane say of their decision to adapt the seminal protest tune for a new era. “Gun violence is an ongoing societal blight, a perverse virus perpetuated by hypocrites mouthing their meaningless recitations of ‘thoughts and prayers.’ With this in mind, our interpretation is slower, darker and considers the possibility that events that were once rare and unacceptable are now met with a shrug of indifference.”
How times have indeed changed. When he wrote the song, Stills took his inspiration from some nasty altercations that had been going on between police and kids on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Over the ensuing years, “For What It’s Worth” became a sort of all-purpose plea for peace in strife-torn locales from Vietnam to Minneapolis. The Muppets even turned it into a broadside against hunting. But this isn’t Martha and the Muppets we’re dealing with here, so prepare yourself for something a lot more sinister: an almost unbearably tense accompaniment to the now-constant specter of yet another shot-up school or house of worship.
“We wanted it to be seriously dark and dramatic, as though something alarming might happen at any time,” Johnson says. “We decided that Mark should sing the verses with his low, doomy voice, and then I did the choruses and the ‘better beware’ sections, so that there were distinct vocal textures happening throughout the song.”
The deliberately unsettling effect is reinforced by atmospheric keyboards and guitar that manage to sound both foreboding and elegiac; you can hear the theatrical instincts Johnson and Gane have honed in their side career scoring films and TV programs.
The issue of gun violence hits close to home for both Johnson and Gane, and the song’s video director, Jason Cipparrone. Prior to producing the video for their recorded song, tragedy struck close when the band’s recently retired accountant of 40 years, Russ Manock, and his wife Lorraine Manock, were fatally shot along with three others in their Vaughan condo building in December 2022. The shocking incident garnered widespread media attention, leaving the duo in disbelief when they learned of the tragic events. In a separate but equally unsettling incident, Cipparrone experienced the impact of gun violence when he heard a shot in the hallway outside his apartment. To his horror, he discovered a gunshot victim lying just outside his door.
Johnson explains,
“It’s particularly haunting to realize that the video’s ‘Gun Heads’ scene they filmed for the video took place right where this crime occurred. The hallway still bears the marks of this grim event, with a visible dent left by a bullet ricocheting off the floor. The gravity of these incidents amplifies our commitment to addressing the urgent issue of gun violence through our music and advocacy.”
Still, it’s as one of Canada’s greatest-ever gifts to rock and pop that Martha and the Muffins will always be known. All the way back in 1981, James Muretich of The Calgary Sunwas already declaring “There is no other band which emerged from Canada’s fledgling punk scene of a few years ago which matters.” The 1980 international hit “Echo Beach” lit the spark of such well-deserved praise; timeless follow-ups like “Swimming” and the Danseparc album further burnished the group’s sterling reputation for canny songcraft. And with the 1984 dancefloor breakout “Black Stations/White Stations,” the band took the lead in exposing the racist underpinnings of big radio.
With Johnson and Gane consistently at the helm, Martha and the Muffins have released eight studio records since their 1977 formation, breaking boundaries and exceeding expectations every step of the way. They’ve had five Top 40 hits in their native Canada and won a JUNO Award for Single of the Year. They even introduced the world to superstar producer Daniel Lanois (who co-produced three of their records and went on to win Grammys for his work with artists like Peter Gabriel and U2). The group’s most recent offering, 2021’s Marthology: In and Outtakes, is a compilation of rare and previously unreleased tracks from the broad expanse of their illustrious career.
That tradition of excellence continues with “For What It’s Worth,” which Johnson and Gane played and recorded entirely on their own at their home studio, The Web. Mixing was done by Tim Abraham (Grand Analog/Odario). The single is accompanied by a music video that’s every bit as startling. Shot in stark black and white, it shows a couple of humanoid figures with literal revolvers for heads wandering from public place to public place, going about their business as if their presence is the most natural thing in the world. Gane came up with the concept, and director Jason Cipparrone– who’s not only a filmmaker but an accomplished photographer – brought it to bracing reality.
“Gun violence has become omnipresent in today’s society, and its impacts are horrifying,” Cipparrone says. “We made this film to highlight how apathy leads to integration of such themes into daily life, such as buying a bulletproof backpack for one’s child.”
If there’s one reaction Martha and the Muffins will never engender, it’s apathy. Lend an ear to “For What It’s Worth,” and you’ll hear the latest of a million reasons why.
Care to introduce yourself?
Martha Johnson and Mark Gane from Martha and the Muffins.
Tell us about the process of recording “For What It’s Worth”? Why that song to cover?
Mark: The first cover song we did for Popguru’s Coverama album project came about a while back when we pitched our reinterpretation of The English Beat’s song ’Save It For Later’ for the series ’Sex Education’. They were looking for a new version for their season 3 trailer. It turns out they didn’t use any version of the song at all but we were left with what we thought was a pretty good cover of the song. I suggested to our manager Graham Stairs that it might be a cool project to have Popguru release a cover album with the label’s artists picking a song that they’d like to do and that way our cover would have a life beyond the initial pitch.
Martha: While we were happy with how ’Save It For Later’ turned out, it was done for a pitch and we wanted to cover a song that we felt was more of a personal choice. One of my suggestions to Mark was ‘Fire’ by Jimi Hendrix. I had a little rough recording I did of it several years ago which we always liked but for whatever reasons it didn’t work when we tried it out. We went through several other ideas and settled on Buffalo Springfield’s 1966 hit, ‘For What It’s Worth’. It’s a very cool song and we have always liked it a lot.
Mark: We wanted to do a song that had social relevance and gravitas reflecting the times we’re living through. We weren’t thinking, “Oh this will make a great single for radio, blah, blah, blah…”, we were intent on making it dark and something of our own, perhaps in the neighbourhood of our song ‘By The Waters Of Babylon’ from our 1986 album, ’The World Is A Ball’. The challenge was to do justice to the original – Buffalo Springfield’s arrangement is so good.
What makes a great cover song?
Martha: You have to put your own stamp on it. It has to reflect you as the artist. Doing faithful reproductions of other artist’s songs is boring.
Mark: You have to bring your own strong interpretation to it, otherwise why bother?
What cover song (besides yours) is better than the original?
Mark: Well, we would never say our version is better than Buffalo Springfield’s! Theirs is perennial and monumental. Ours is just different and hopefully powerful in another way.
Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ is better than Dylan’s original. The arrangement is complex, atmospheric, and apocalyptic. It’s apparently Dylan’s favourite version of his song.
Martha: Sinéad O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s ’Nothing Compares 2 U’. I cry every time I hear it.
You’ve been making music for a bit of time now, what do you want to achieve or do in 2024 that you haven’t done before?
Martha: We’ve been doing this for 47 years! I have a song that I co-wrote with Fabio Dwyer, another musician with Parkinson’s Disease that is meant to raise awareness and serve as an example that life doesn’t end when you’re diagnosed. We’ve partnered with Krembil Research Institute/UHN and Parkinson Canada to produce a short doc on the making of this which is to be released during Parkinson’s Awareness Month this coming April.
Mark: After starting it 25 years ago, I have finally finished ‘Garden Music’, an instrumental album based on common plant names that I hope to release shortly as soon as I get my damn website together!
Martha: Then there’s the 1983 Live At Ontario Place concert with the ‘Dansparc’ era MatM recorded by Dan Lanois to get out and ‘Dazzlefield’, a collection of broken-hearted songs co-written with younger songwriters. We have to get on that again…
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