Artist	Song
The Beatles [Anthology 3, Disc 1]	While My Guitar Gently Weeps [Anthology version] (3:27)
David Bowie [Young Americans]	Across the Universe (4:31)
Aerosmith [Grammy's Greatest Moments, Volume 2]	Come Together [live] (4:27)
King Crimson [Heavy ConstruKction, Disc 3]	Tomorrow Never Knew Thela [live, sampling Tomorrow Never Knows] (4:47)
BTla Fleck & the Flecktones [Flight of the Cosmic Hippo]	Michelle (5:09)
Jay-Z vs. Danger Mouse w/ The Beatles [The Grey Album]	What More Can I Say [sampling While My Guitar Gently Weeps] (4:25)
Cleve Pozar: Batß & 'Bones [Let's Try It Again]	Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (4:09)
Fairport Convention feat. Dan Ar Braz [The Cropredy Box, Disc 2]	Rain [live] (5:21)
MIT Chorallaries [Poker Face]	If I Needed Someone (2:23)
Richie Havens [Sings Beatles And Dylan]	Working Class Hero (5:01)
Steve Marcus [Tomorrow Never Knows]	Tomorrow Never Knows (11:10)
Crosby, Stills & Nash [CSN Box Set, Disc 1]	Blackbird (2:27)
The Beatles w/ Jimi Hendrix	Day Tripper [mash-up] (2:50)
The 3 Tenors [The 3 Tenors Christmas]	Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (3:20)
Vincent Bell [Pop Goes The Electric Sitar]	Eleanor Rigby (2:33)
The Beastie Boys [Paul's Boutique]	The Sounds of Science [sampling The End] (3:11)
Pavarotti & Friends [For Cambodia & Tibet]	All You Need Is Love [live] (3:50)
Joan Baez [Come From The Shadows]	Imagine (3:24)
The Beatles [Anthology 3, Disc 2]	The End [Anthology version] (2:50)
The Beatles [White Album, Disc 2]	Can You Take Me Back (0:27)

Comment:

Can you take me back where I came from...? Over three and a half decades since the Beatles broke up, nearly two and a half decades since Lennon was shot, we all come back to the Beatles' music. Starting and ending with Beatles Anthology tracks (plus a little extra fillip, "Her Majesty"-style) this mix comprises what others have done with the Beatles' songs: covering them or, in a few cases (tracks 4, 6, 13, 16) sampling them. For each of the tracks that samples a Beatles song, the song itself is also presented, either in an original or in a cover version (in the case of "Day Tripper", within the track itself), though never in the version that was actually sampled. These four sampling tracks are also, I'd like to think, all from songs especially dedicated to the Beatles' music: "Day Tripper" combines the Beatles samples with Hendrix's cover of the same song, "Tomorrow Never Knew Thela" is a live group improvisation based on the recorded "Tomorrow Never Knows" theme, "The Sounds Of Science" actually samples no less than four Beatles songs ("The End", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", and both the introductory and reprise "Sgt. Pepper", though "The End" is by far the most prominent) and "What More Can I Say" is, of course, from the Grey Album, whose entire set of beats was constructed from Beatles songs. The instrumental covers are "Michelle", "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "Tomorrow Never Knows", and "Eleanor Rigby" -- for these last two, a profuse thanks to fellow mixer, slipperyhangdoglook (oh, and Paul, do please let me know if I've misnamed the source album for "Eleanor Rigby", though I don't know if I'll easily give up having something from an album called "Pop Goes The Electric Sitar"). A couple notes on the artists: Although Luciano Pavarotti is a prominent part of the 3 Tenors' performance of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", he doesn't seem to be present at all in the Pavarotti & Friends "All You Need Is Love", the ensemble instead being comprised of the multitudes of support artists who had sang and played along with Pavarotti in the recording of this benefit concert; and Cleve Pozar, whose cover of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (instrumental, thankfully -- I could never stand the words to that song) is definitely the most whacked-out of any cover on this mix, is an avant-garde performer on the batß, the traditional drums of the Santerfa religion, who also happens to know my dad and gave him the "Let's Try It Again" CD years ago. This arrangement's structural disjunctions, sudden tempo changes, and random-sounding stop-starts make me quite happy to have found this cover. ... Sure, three of my "Beatles" covers are actually covers of post-Beatles Lennon; of course, that didn't stop Richie Havens from putting "Working Class Hero" (as well as "Imagine" and "My Sweet Lord") on his "Sings Beatles And Dylan" album, so, I ask you, why should it stop me?? And anyway, the splendid-hearted Joan Baez sings "Imagine" better than Lennon ever could (that sarcastic bastard, I never believed the man who wrote "Glass Onion" could muster up enough faith to really *mean* his own "Imagine" lyrics) and "Working Class Hero" is the only Beatle cover on the entire bloody Havens album that's not smothered with cheesy 80's synth sounds... ahh, what have you done to me, faithless decade of my birth....

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