See Jessie James Decker’s Sultry Cover of Rihanna’s ‘Love on the Brain’
Jessie James Decker puts a sultry, acoustic country spin on the old-school doo-wop and soul of Rihanna’s 2016 hit “Love on the Brain” in this exclusive black-and-white clip. She infuses Rihanna’s original, which drew favorable comparisons to Amy Winehouse, with even more of the late singer’s torchy vulnerability. Decker was inspired to record her own version after posting an Instagram clip of herself singing a snippet of it to her infant son, Eric. That clip has since topped 900,000 views.
“I saw [Rihanna] perform it at a music awards show and I fell madly in love with this song,” she says. “It sounded so vintage and retro that I actually thought she was covering a smash song from the Fifties. Hopefully people like my version. It’s a little more Southern, but I think it’s good.”
The powerhouse performance contrasts the flirty vibe of “Lights Down Low,” the Top Forty country hit from Decker’s Gold EP, which brought together her two public personae – country singer and reality-TV presence – as she and husband, NFL wide receiver Eric Decker, stars of the E! series Eric & Jessie: Game On, canoodled in the music video for that tune. The song, which she and co-writer Alyssa Bonagura collaborated on via text message, was inspired by the Deckers’ pursuit of some alone time, a challenge for the parents of two small children.
“When you have kids it can be hard sometimes, because you’ve got to find creative ways to spend time with each other,” Decker tells Rolling Stone Country. “So with ‘Lights Down Low’ I wanted to just write about all the things that we do to try to keep the love alive in creative ways, because you can’t always go out on a date. . . but you can make a date at home.”
Decker hit Number One on iTunes just after her EP Gold was released last month. Next up for the singer and fashion entrepreneur is a concert date in