I would like to tell you that I chose this song without the intention to make a really crap and frankly insensitive joke about what’s going on in the world right now, but I suppose I can only say that this version of Cough/Cool is one of the best things I’ve heard from The Misfits.

Obviously that’s up to taste: I do really like the simple drumming and almost-out-of-tune distortion that you can hear in most of their well-known tracks, but there’s something about this single that’s honestly astonishing to listen to. Distortion in its tradition sense isn’t what I hear in the 1977 Cough/Cool but I think this version is more raw than anything else The Misfits have done. There’s something about the electric keyboard’s blue notes and Glenn Danzig’s velvet vocals sounding pretty far off yet still vital, as if the sound is bouncing around a churchyard. And fuck me!!!!! Manny Martinez on drums is a fucking magician!! The snare rolls are slithering all over the place and it sounds so brilliant with all the rest of the eeriness. I wonder what happened to him, he’s the only drummer of the Misfits I’ve ever heard who’s worthy of remark. Maybe Danzig pissed on him or something.

I remember hearing the later version of Cough/Cool on Collection II like six years ago or something and still being taken aback by how it sounded. It was the first I’d heard of The Misfits’ ghoulish stuff at a more measured pace than I was used to, and I remember liking it. Everything sounds more sterile in that version – the drumming is considerably less interesting and the snare sounds like it belongs in a Bon Jovi song – but I’ll link the two so you can hear the comparison and judge for yourself.