Owl City covers “Waving Through a Window” From Dear Evan Hansen.

Listen to Owl City’s Cover of “Waving Through a Window” From Dear Evan Hansen

Listen to Owl City’s Cover of “Waving Through a Window” From Dear Evan Hansen

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Slate's Culture Blog
June 23 2017 5:19 PM

Listen to Owl City’s Cover of “Waving Through a Window” From Dear Evan Hansen

2017-Tony-Awards--Show
Ben Platt performs with the cast of Dear Evan Hansen onstage during the 2017 Tony Awards.

Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions

If ever a Broadway musical was begging for Owl City to cover one of its songs, Tony winner Dear Evan Hansen is that musical. Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s music is already pretty pop-friendly, which makes a new cover of one of their songs by Adam Young, the man behind Owl City, all the more appropriate. Young brings his distinct electro-pop style to a new version of “Waving Through a Window,” now available to stream:

Young told Billboard that while he still has not seen Dear Evan Hansen, he agreed to cover the song originally sung by Ben Platt after getting a call from Pasek, Paul, and music supervisor Alex Lacamoire. “One of the things that Alex, Benj, and Justin mentioned to me in their initial pitch was, conceptually, if there was a radio in Evan Hansen's bedroom, they thought it would be playing Owl City music,” he said. “He’s this outsider, he’s got social anxiety, a lot of things I dealt with as a high schooler myself.”

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Young’s chipper emo sound is a perfect fit for the soaring but still anxiety-riddled song, so we give his version 8,000 out of a possible 10,000 lightning bugs.

Marissa Martinelli is a Slate editorial assistant.