Driving home the other day to the sound of Echo and the Bunnymen's remastered Ocean Rain, the mood was somewhat spoilt by the inclusion of the band's version of All You Need is Love among the additional tracks. Covering The Beatles, it struck me not for the first time, is generally not a good idea.
I'm glad I did. For me, there are few better examples of recorded music that Strawberry Fields
Forever, where of course Lennon ignored George Martin's scepticism to take the two arrangements they'd tried and put them together, producing one of the greatest moments of the sixties in the process. To my surprise and delight, Jah Wobble and Tian Qiyi manage to pull off a cover of said track brilliantly and without, you suspect, any of the original's studio sorcery, and it's this you can hear in my Dandelion Radio show this month (here).
Where the rest of the album works best is often in the more under-the-radar Beatles tunes (if there can be said to be such a thing). The treatment of Blue Jay Way is a particular delight, as is the instrumental Flying, both of course originally from the Magical Mystery Tour EP. My mumbled 'careful, boys' at the attempt at the EP's most notable track - I Am The Walrus - is thankfully ignored: this version is wonderfully understated. Much as I'm tempted to stick on a recording of King Lear while playing it, for posterity's sake, I'm happy to report that the recording works perfectly well without it.
Mystic Liverpool is out today: get it from Cherry Red here.
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