Everyone’s favorite secretly emo country singers have returned with another staple early 2000’s throwback, “Ohio Is For Lovers.”
Chances are, if you had a Myspace, this Hawthorne Heights hit was featured on your page at least once… You know, the “cut my wrists and black my eyes” theme song? The Alabama duo, Muscadine Bloodline, has been absolutely crushing it with their nostalgic alt covers over the past few weeks, highlighting some of their favorite tracks through their self proclaimed series, “What if ___ was a Muscadine Bloodline song?”
This time around, they posed the question, “What if ‘Ohio Is For Lovers’ was a Muscadine Bloodline song?” and to answer that question, the 2004 track becomes a stripped-down, beautiful rendition that I can’t stop listening to. The duo, formed in 2015 by Charlie Muncaster and Gary Stanton, never fail to amaze me with how well their vocals blend together and shine through on acoustic performances like this.
Reminiscing on the now over twenty-year-old song, they captioned their post: “That elder emo is showing. 6th grade, a skateboard and an iPod shuffle. Sticking out like a sore thumb in South Alabama,” which a few fans hilariously resonated with in the comments, noting: “Being full of teenage angst while eating supper at Maw-Maw’s house? Wearing a black hoodie in this humidity? It wasn’t for the weak.”
Without fail, their cover of Hawthorne Heights’ debut single, aka “emo anthem,” also has fans yet again begging for a full throwback album of their scene favorites. Luckily, as they responded to one begging fan in the comments, it already exists, and it’s called Teenage Angst.
The 2023 EP has four must-hear tracks similar to this cover, including “Jamie All Over” and “Adam’s Song.” They also took a spin at Taking Back Sunday’s “MakeDamnSure” a few weeks ago and All Time Low’s “Dear Maria, Count Me In.”
Luckily for fans now roped in to this perfect crossover of emo-country, Muscadine left a little room for hopeful thinking, replying to a few comments asking them to release their cover with, “Maybe one day.” They also responded to one comment saying, “PLEASE release this” with a simple “Thanks” and I don’t know why that’s got me cracking up right now.
But nonetheless, with hundreds of comments from people finally being seen in this perfect mashup and feeling every bit of angst throughout their teens all over again, I think a second album of covers is well overdue. I’ll leave you with this masterpiece someone made in the comment section, and check out their most recent emo covers down below:
