Courtney Love and The Big Moon's Juliette Jackson cover "California Stars" to launch new series

After teasing the cover series with Jackson back in March with a clip of Aimee Mann's "Philly Sinks", Courtney Love has shared the first full cover, which is of Wilco and Billy Bragg's "California Stars".

The cover series, titled Bruises of Roses, will see Love and Jackson of The Big Moon cover some of Love's favourite songs after being hospitalised with anemia last year.

Love and Jackson will also cover songs by Elliott Smith and Simon & Garfunkel.

Speaking to Vogue about how Bruises of Roses started, Love said, "Well, first off, my guitar playing is terrible. I used to be okay enough to write songs and play onstage, but for a while I just couldn’t. I was really, really sick during lockdown and trying to use the pain to find solace in my guitar, but I just wasn’t connected with my artistry. It was gone. I read an article about how Laura Marling was giving guitar lessons online, and off to the side, I saw this girl Juliette [Jackson] from [The] Big Moon was doing the same thing. I wrote to her and made her sign an NDA since everyone on my team is so paranoid, and we had three sessions together where we’d just hang out and sing "Boots of Spanish Leather" while playing together."

Love also revealed that she got the name for the series after suggesting the name for a fragrance for Edge Beauty. Love said she has "a long attachment to roses", and after the Edge Beauty CEO said she would never have a rose named after her, Love added, ""Well then I’m gonna gift you this name Bruises of Roses for the fragrance", but then I thought, No, fuck that! and used it for this instead."

On the decision to cover "California Stars", Love said, "Well, I’d been prohibited by various gatekeepers from ever truly enjoying the Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy from Wilco version of the song. But I learned from Juliette that "California Stars" is a Woody Guthrie poem put to music, and that changed my perspective. It’s just such a charming, rollicking little song. I’m a fourth-generation Californian, and every time I hear it, it reminds me of places like Will Rogers State Park and the great bluffs above Salinas. I’m a California girl, and I will never not be a California girl, so there’s so much in that song for me."