Cover Wars: She Said She Said Edition
I know I’ve been a little Beatles heavy as of recently, but who could blame me? Members of Phish getting together to play Beatles cover is a pretty big deal. Speaking of which, two weeks ago’s Day Tripper edition is way too close to call, so if you haven’t done so – navigate over there and place a vote if you are so inclined.
I was thinking about doing She Said as a Cover Wars just as soon as Mike Gordon’s new band played it in Northampton last week. Then I heard that Trey and Fish played it with him at Rothbury and THEN I heard that Gov’t Mule played their own rendition of it directly after that – so this could not be more topical.
If you don’t know the inspiration of the song – long story short: During an off week of The Beatles USA tour in 1965…they rent out a house, most of the band is on LSD as is Peter Fonda who is freaking out George Harrison and John Lennon by telling him that he “knows what it’s like to be dead”. Fonda accidentally shot himself at age 10 and apparently his heart stopped 3 times on the operating table. Fonda thought this was a good story to tell people that are tripping face and was even showing people his wounds from it.
You can read some hilarious quotes from the band members regarding that crazy night in a few places around the Internet. Check out: Wikipedia, The Songs of John Lennon: The Beatles Years, and The Beatles Anthology. All links open in new windows.
As always, you must register/login to imeem if you wish to listen to the songs in the playlist in their entirety.
READ ON after the jump for the voting and lots of live She Said video footage…
Assembly Of Dust: Reid Genauer and the AOD will kick this one off for us with a version from Milestones in Rochester. Check out the whole show on The Archive
The Black Keys: This duo out of Ohio has no trouble mustering enough noise to recreate a song originally performed by a quartet. The Black Keys included this cover on their debut album, The Big Come Up.
Also check out some live footage from the High Noon Saloon in Madison:
The Chords: This band out of England also included She Said on their debut album in 1980, So Far Away. This is the one where I say, “I had never heard this version before”.
Gov’t Mule: It would appear bands really don’t have any hang-ups about throwing this Beatles song on a studio release, because Mule did it on their second studio album Dose. This is also a staple of the live Mule repertoire and frequently is paired with Tomorrow Never Knows or includes other Beatles teases/jams thrown into the mix. Warren also sang it in various lineups of Phil Lesh & Friends. I’m thinking it was just a coincidence that the guys from Phish and Warren were both playing this one at Rothbury just minutes apart.
As a quick Warren bonus, click here to hear the Phil Lesh Quintet performing the tune back in 2000.
Also, some video, Mule does She Said > Tomorrow Never Knows back in 2000:
Mike Gordon: ScottyB was quick to point out when the YouTube of Mike’s band at the Iron Horse surfaced that he had picked a nice brisk tempo for the tune compared to some other covers of it out there. He’s right. If you didn’t know that’s Scott Murawski of Max Creek on the guitar (Yes, that’s a Languedoc) along with Todd Isler, Tom Cleary, and Craig Myers.
And of course, the one everyone is talking about: Trey and Fish take the stage with Mike Gordon’s touring band at Rothbury on Sunday:
Keller Williams: K-W also sometimes pairs this one with Tomorrow Never Knows. They are both off of the album Revolver and they have similar subject matter – so it makes sense. You can hear the whole show from Keller over on The Archive
The Recipe: The bluegrass entry. The Recipe frequently pairs this with Salt Creek, I faded that out and just included the She Said part, you can hear the whole sequence and the whole show over on The Archive
Ween: Well, this version may only appeal to the Ween hardcores. This comes off of Ween’s second release titled Axis: Bold As Boognish which is available for free over at Brown Tracker.
And that’s all we got this week – hope you enjoyed it. Please scroll back up and have your vote be counted and let us know who has the best cover of this tune.
