The Foo Fighters just wrapped up a two night stand in Liverpool, England, their first time playing the hometown of The Beatles. Of course the occasion couldn’t go unremarked upon and the band covered the relatively deep cut “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” from Abbey Road. The song appeared during the band’s encore. (Reportedly “Blackbird” was also in the setlist for the band’s acoustic set, but Grohl chose to play “Under You” instead.) Continue reading »
One of the highlights of the ongoing Claypool Gold tour has been seeing Les Claypool‘s various groups come together on stage to perform together at several times during the evening. The tour features performances by The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, (which Claypool co-fronts with Sean Lennon) and, of course, Primus. Continue reading »
Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Isn’t it a shame that George Harrison had to live so long in the shadow of Lennon/McCartney? But then, all songwriters live in that shadow–including John Lennon and Paul McCartney, whose solo careers never reached the creative heights of their partnership years. George was only unique in that some of his best songs were repeatedly denied a serious hearing by his own band. For example, “Isn’t It a Pity.”
Harrison pitched the song as early as Revolver in 1966. In Lennon’s judgement, it didn’t make the grade, neither for that album nor for any subsequent Beatle album. In Peter Jackson’s Get Back, there’s footage of George complaining about this to Lennon. The scene was a revelation to those who assumed (like I did) that “Isn’t It a Pity” (released in November 1970) was a hot take on the acrimonious Beatles breakup announced in April 1970.
So the question becomes, what reasons did George have in 1966 to feel so bleak? At age 23, he was already rich and famous beyond measure, the most influential guitarist of his guitar-obsessed generation. He was newly married to the actress/model Patti Boyd. He didn’t even have to tour anymore. Apart from the taxman, what did he have to moan about?
The early creation of “Isn’t It a Pity” affirms that there was substance to the trope of George as the “Spiritual Beatle.” His love of Indian music and his budding friendship with Ravi Shankar led to a deep engagement with Eastern spiritual concepts. Mature enough to see through material success, he pondered the nature of suffering, the traps of ego, greed, and ignorance. As much as the other Beatles got swept up in these newfound fascinations–transcendental meditation, especially–Lennon and McCartney (and manager Brian Epstein) may have felt George’s world-weariness needed to be held in check. After all, the band still felt compelled to project positivity in this post-touring period, with songs like “Good Day Sunshine,” “Getting Better,” and “All You Need is Love.”
For all his cynicism, George could also write cheerfully about love and sunshine with the best of them. His Abbey Road contributions “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” make that obvious. More to the point, consider the first single from his first post-Beatles solo album, All Things Must Pass, “My Sweet Lord” / “Isn’t It a Pity.” On this double A-side, George expresses something like spiritual rapture and joy on one side, and then on the flip side the opposite. Both sides are the real George Harrison.
It seems clear in retrospect that “My Sweet Lord” was really the A-est of the single’s two sides. “Isn’t It a Pity” seems not to have maintained the excitement it generated at the start. Several other tracks from All Things Must Pass have proven more popular in time, including the title track, the album’s third single, “What is Life,” and of course “My Sweet Lord,” with an order of magnitude more streams than any other song on the triple album.
So with “Here Comes the Sun” being the most successful Beatles song (in the streaming era at least), and “My Sweet Lord” being by far George’s best-selling solo track, let’s look again at the brooding flip side of George Harrison. And how other artists have responded to it.
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This year, director Peter Jackson was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his impressive body of work, most recently his work on the Beatles Get Back film. And at the opening ceremonies of the festival, French singer Oklou was joined by French-Congolese singer Theodora to play a fitting Beatles cover, given this year’s honoree. Continue reading »
Metronomy drummer Anna Prior is back with a new EP, Firefly. The first single is a cover of the Mary J Blige classic. “I’ve wanted to do a cover song for a long time and I just never found the right one that fit with my sound,” Prior wrote. “The overall tone and feeling of the original fit so well with the ‘A minor’ theme of the EP that I just couldn’t resist. It’s a song that shaped my late teenage years and I really hope I’ve done it justice and I don’t get sued.” [Editor’s note: You won’t. That’s not how covers work…]
Last December, the prolific Bonnie “Prince” Billy hopped onstage with Yo La Tengo to cover—of all people—current Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Pink. The song was a pretty deep cut too, a single from 2023. Will Oldham must really like that song, because he’s returned to it again in a solo incarnation. As if that combo wasn’t wild enough, add this one: This video was recorded at the early 18th-century pub The Lamb in Bloomsbury London, regular haunt of Charles Dickens. Continue reading »
You sort of know where you are with Portland’s Dandy Warhols. Their grungy fug of elemental electronica and gritty guitars rarely disappoints, nor does it stray far from their narrowly defined template. Applying a sheen of intelligent and informed dumb to everything they touch, cover versions have always proven sure ground for the quartet, making Pin Ups, their second set devoted thereto, something to relish. Given, too, the influences in their original songs are never that hard to spot, they nail more personality into the songs of others than you might reasonably expect, making this so much more than swoozy re-runs.
It is easy to imagine the discussions leading to this set of 17 songs were as much fun as the making of it. Some songs and some bands were just screaming out for inclusion–witness the Cramps and the Runaways–but I can’t say Dylan and the Beatles were expected to be featured, let alone the particular songs chosen. Of course, this isn’t the first airing for all of these songs, some collated and curated from previous forays into tribute discs and similar. Overall, there is also a stronger UK goth presence than might have been expected, with a song from the Cure and two by the Cult. Any obtusely perceived debt to UK punk is likewise mined through assaults on the songbooks of both the Clash and the Damned. Intrigued? I am.
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