Waxahatchee Drops New Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton Covers

Waxahatchee is celebrating the one-year anniversary of her critically acclaimed album Saint Cloud with a new deluxe version, featuring three covers. The track list boasts renditions of Lucinda Williams’ “Fruits of My Labor” (which she performed live during her 2017-2018 Out in the Storm tour), Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia,” and Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.”

All three covers fit right into the mellow, country-inspired sound of Saint Cloud. “Fruits of My Labor” sticks pretty faithfully to Williams’ original (from 2003’s World Without Tears), while “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” finds Katie Crutchfield taking a more intimate approach compared to Parton’s Motown-esque version. Most interesting is the “Streets of Philadelphia” cover, which still carries echoes of the 1993-era production found on the Philadelphia soundtrack.

This past weekend, Crutchfield and her band released an anniversary show for Saint Cloud, filmed in Kansas City last month. The ticketed virtual show was directed by Johnny Eastlund.

Crutchfield recently spoke to Rolling Stone about the influence of Fiona Apple on her music, as part of this year’s annual Women Shaping the Future issue.

“What I think is so special about her is there’s this stereotype of women’s emotions — the idea of the hysterical woman — and that has been weaponized against women forever from the beginning of time,” Crutchfield said. “And she takes that idea and she turns it into this superpower. She takes this thing used as a negative against women and just flips it completely on its head and makes it powerful and very relatable.”