Marc Almond loves David Gray’s cover of Soft Cell’s ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ because he made it a "big, big hit".
The 51-year-old singer had huge success when he covered the band’s 1982 track in 2001 for his album ‘White Ladder’, and now Soft Cell’s frontman Marc has said he loves listening to covers of the synthpop duo’s music, because he likes how people adapt the "genuinely real songs".
Speaking exclusively to BANG! Showbiz, he said: "I like the fact people have covered ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ because there’s a genuinely real song in there. It’s a classic torch song, chanson song. It’s not a dance track or a repetitive track. Sigue Sigue Sputnik did a great version of ‘Memorabilia’. David Gray did ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ which was great, because he had a big, big hit with it."
Marc – who is joined in Soft Cell by instrumentalist David Ball – is also a fan of a-Ha’s version of the same song, because he thinks singer Morten Harket "has a great voice".
He added: "Also, I loved a-Ha’s version of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye. It was fantastic, because I’m a big fan of a-Ha. Morten Harket has a great voice and they’re a great band. Also being partly Norwegian myself, I’m very fond of them."
And whilst he enjoys listening to covers of his own work, he finds it hard to write new songs for other people, because he ends up just writing them for himself.
He said: "I find it difficult to write songs for other people because I write songs with myself in mind and I hear myself singing them. I write things, particularly words, for me. I’m not the kind of songwriter who writes things for other people. Most things I’ve written for other people in the past have been turned down because they sound like a Marc Almond song, so I might as well do it myself."
Marc Almond loves David Gray’s Say Hello Wave Goodbye cover
