Friday, March 13, 2009

cover: Shop Assistants do the Beatles

"I Know What It's Like To Be Dead"

Elusively titled "One More Time", the b-side to the Shop Assistants Big E Power 7" is actually a cover of the Beatles "She Said She Said." Whether or not this was a deliberate attempt to circumnavigate paying royalties to Apple Records (or Jacko) is beyond me, however, it certainly seems as if the reclusive Edinburgh band was going for obscurity with the lack of Lennon-cred. "She Said" was written after a rugged acid trip in Southern California, which included Peter Fonda, who had recently injured himself with a shotgun blast, showing Lennon his fresh wound, and saying "I know what it's like to be dead." Lennon was thoroughly tweaked. Clearly Fonda made an impression and when Lennon arrived back in the UK, he wrote the tune, one of my Revolver favorites. Released in 1990, the heyday of ecstasy/rave culture in the UK, Big E Power is an appropriate, albeit forward, title for the Shop Assistants single, considering its b-side's place in pantheon of drug history. Not a life changing cover, but definitely worth a listen for fans of the Fab Four and the c86 aesthetic.

Shop Assistants- One More Time (aka "She Said She Said")

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