I’ll be honest, I was into this track for a while before realising it was a cover - I was touring with Aldous RH and he played the D’Angelo version in the van; I thought it was cool that D'Angelo had covered an obscure private press track. The Lori Longmire version is quiet and awkward, and hilariously it sounds like there’s a bassist on the session but he only wanted to play one riff in the verse and that’s it.
Michael Hurley also did a more straight-up cover of this tune (under the name ‘Blue Driver’), but I chose this version with his re-written lyrics because it has some great Western swing steel guitar which is lacking on the other versions.
All respect to Dolly, but I think this version is far better than her original. While it lacks her neon-phased guitars, it’s got this bittersweet disco thing with Rhodes and Moog flourishes and that cool snare thing the drummer does every four bars in 'Dancing Queen'.
Title
May You Never Be Alone
Artist
The Godz
Original
Hank Williams - May You Never Be Alone
大好きなビートルズの「You Won't See Me」のカヴァーを入れることも考えましたが、こちらの方が少し簡潔で口当たりがいいですね。私はGodzの大ファンで、彼らは他の誰にもない何かを私に与えてくれます。ザ・ニヒリスト・スパズム・バンドのような攻撃性やAMMのような高尚さはなく、ザ・ファッグスよりも純粋で冗談が少ないところが好きです。
I considered putting their cover of The Beatles’ ‘You Won’t See Me’, which I love, but this one is a little more concise and palatable. I’m a huge Godz-head, they just get something out of me that no one else does. More genuine and less jokey than The Fugs without getting into the full aggression of Nihilist Spasm Band or loftiness of AMM.
Title
It’s So Easy (When You Know What You’re Doing)
Artist
John Andrews & The Yawns
Original
Ted Lucas - It's So Easy When You Know What You're Doing
恥ずかしながら、この曲が収録されているトリビュート盤を聴くまでジョン・アンドリュース&ザ・ヤーンズを知りませんでした。2010年頃、私は兄のレコード店でテッド・ルーカスの『Ted Lucas』の再発盤を見つけ、「It's So Easy When You Know What You're Doing」に夢中になりました(このアルバムはA面とB面に大きく格差があると思います。A面はすべて素晴らしく、繊細で、時には信じられないほど美しいフォークソングで、ジャムバンドのラーガ調のB面は私には必要ありません)。私は数年前に1年間入院しなければならなかったのですが、当時のパートナーが「彼は死ぬ可能性が高い」としてこのアルバムを選んだことがとても印象に残っています。ザ・ヤーンズは今月新譜をリリースしますが、私はこの曲を何週間も繰り返し聴いています。
I’m ashamed to say I hadn't heard of John Andrews & The Yawns until I heard this tribute comp - I found a reissue of Lucas’ album in my brother’s record store back around 2010 and became obsessed with the songs (I think that album has the greatest disparity between the two sides of the record - the first side is all great, delicate, sometimes incredibly beautiful folk songs, while the second is jam-band ragas which I can do without). I had to spend a year in hospital a few years ago and my partner at the time chose this album as her “there’s a good chance he’s going to die” album, which says a lot. The Yawns have a new record coming out this month, and I’ve had the singles on repeat for weeks.
I had Emerson-san and mmm-san stay with me when they came to play in Manchester a couple of years ago and loved getting to spend a little time with them. Their live show was really something special, more so than I’d expected it to be. This cover is beautiful, and has a little of that delicate, playful Childisc vibe. I can’t wait to be an old man and get really bummed out listening to this.
I'm obviously a big Beatles fan but equally I have a real soft-spot for covers which sound like they fucking hate the source material. Someone in the YouTube comments pointed out that it sounds weirdly like ‘Temporary Secretary’.
Title
Baby I Need Your Lovin'
Artist
Tiger Joanie Scott
Original
Four Tops - Baby I Need Your Loving
大ヒットした原曲があったとは知らず、単なる奇妙なアウトサイダー・ポップソングだと思っていました。この「I Need Your Lovin'」は、ホーランド=ドジャー=ホーランドの曲としては、非常にぎこちなく書かれています。ヴァースとコーラスのキーが違っていたり(コーラスの終わりからヴァースに戻るコードチェンジが辛い)、ヴァースが任意の小節数だけ続いているように聴こえます。オリジナルではストリングスのアレンジがこれらのギャップを埋めるのに役立っていますが、私はこの剥き出しで少し醜いカヴァー曲の方がずっと好きです。不器用で正直で、コーラスではこの間抜けなドラムのフィルがありますが、これは私にとって奇妙にもこの曲の最もキャッチーな部分です。
Another one I didn’t realise was actually this big hit and thought was just a weird outsider pop song. It still sounds very awkwardly-written for a Holland-Dozier-Holland track - the verse and chorus are in different keys (the chord change from the end of the chorus back into the verse is painful) and the verse just seems to go on for an arbitrary number of bars. The string arrangement on the original helps to bridge some of these gaps but I much prefer this stripped-back, slightly ugly version - it’s awkward and honest and has this dumb drum fill in the chorus which is weirdly the catchiest bit of the song for me.
The Coneheads sound like you’re half-holding down the fast-forward button on a Devo tape. All DI’d guitars and alien vocals. It makes perfect sense that they’d cover The Residents.
Title
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Artist
Peter Grudzien
Original
The Carter Family - Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)
Peter Grudzien’s ‘The Unicorn’ is one of the greatest albums of all time, but he has been sporadically releasing cassettes in the intervening years, most of which have no tracklisting, and this is from a CD-R which seems to be his most recent release from 2001. Home-recorded outsider country with themes of gay rights, the apocalypse and government-created clones. This version of the traditional Christian hymn is a total mess but is absolutely earnest.
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Jolan Lewis makes records under his own name and as The Foetals, as well as playing guitar and keyboards for Aldous RH, Drugdealer, Sean Nicholas Savage and Francis Lung and occasionally hosting the Attic Demonstration show on NTS Radio, focused on outsider, private press and lo-fi music. Instagram bandcamp