Here’s a nice turn-around, as Drew & Ellie Holcomb release covers of each other’s songs. Released at the end of June, Drew offered his take on Ellie’s Constellations, while Ellie reimagines Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors’ What Would I Do Without You. And it’s the latter of those two songs we’re featuring here. Speaking of the old switcharoo, the pair offered some thoughts. “I’ll never forget the day Ellie came home and played me the song she wrote that day; Constellations… I wept,” says Drew. “It is such a beautiful song about crying out to God in the darkest of hours. I am honored to have covered it this year on tour and wanted to record and release my version for posterity. I respect Ellie Holcomb more than anyone in the world. She is a generationally vulnerable songwriter and singer.”
For Ellie, revisiting What Would I Do Without You became equally profound. “I love being married to a songwriter,” she says. “Some nights he comes home from a day in the studio, and when I ask, ‘How was your day, babes?’ he sits down and plays me a song like What Would I Do Without You. I’ll never forget the night Drew played me this song. I cried as he played it and sat in wonder at the way this man continues to write love and loss and struggle and joy and doubt and grit and story into songs. What Would I Do Without You is one of my very favorite songs of his, and covering it on tour this year has been a highlight for me. It’s also been a moment during the live show that I often have to fight through tears to sing. The tears come from a deep well of gratitude, from knowing the love of this man, the joy and ache of being human and building a life together, and the wild wonder of getting to do something we both love so much all these years: writing songs and sending them out into the world. I hope you love this version of What Would I Do Without You as much as I have loved singing it every night on our Never Gonna Let You Go tour.
Ah, bless.
And if you’re wondering why this one and not the other, or the obvious genius move of both, well; observant readers will have noticed that for Tracks we use Bandcamp or Soundcloud or Youtube music only videos (and, yes, you’re right, sometimes performance or lyric visualizer videos) and, well, Ellie’s track link had a Youtube attached, and Drew’s, well, how can we put it? Drew’s didn’t. Get that fixed, young man, and pronto.
