100 best covers: #30 Eddie Vedder “You’ve got to hide your love away”

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Well, we’re finally breaking into the top thirty on this list of my favourite ever covers and it’s Pearl Jam frontman doing The Beatles’ “You’ve got to hide your love away”.

This is the fourth cover of a Beatles song we’ve seen on the list so far* and the third track to be pulled from the “I am Sam” soundtrack. In the two previous such posts, I mentioned how the soundtrack for the 2001 film consists solely of Beatles covers, faithful in track length and time signatures, given the filmmakers were not granted the rights to include the originals and that the songs had already been selected for already filmed scenes. It was a brilliant save by the filmmakers and the result is probably a more interesting soundtrack than it might have been, as great as The Beatles’ originals of those seventeen songs were.

It’s no accident that I am timing this post to follow the one counting down albums ten through six in my Best film soundtrack series. If you’ve been following along, you’d know that “I am Sam” didn’t appear as one my honourable mentions back on February 1st, nor was it amongst the latter half of my top ten. And when I saw this particular post on radar to write, I thought I’d take the opportunity to clear the air before moving into the top five – “I am Sam” won’t be one of them. Great concept yes, and some of the renditions were quite successful, but I’d say that almost of half of them were less so, making the whole less than its parts. An uneven listen.

Eddie Vedder’s cover was another one of the bright spots. Faithful to the original, not only in sound but also in spirit, a playful wink of the eye.

Much has been made of the fact that the John Lennon-penned “You’ve got to hide your love away” was his attempt at Bob Dylan. Successful or not, the fourth track on side one of 1965’s “Help” album is Lennon singing solo overtop a bed made of mostly acoustic guitars. Sure there’s a bit of percussion but it’s definitely before Dylan went electric and where Mr. Zimmerman would typically accompany himself with a harmonica, The Beatles opted for some flutes in its place.

Vedder opted for similar ethos with his cover. You can almost imagine him standing on a New York City street corner with a harmonica neck holder around his neck, a kick pedal attached to a high hat at his feet. The production even sounds dusty, DIY, and of a different time.

Lovely stuff indeed. Better than the original? Well…

Cover:

Original:

*The three previous posts were Rufus Wainwright’s “Across the universe” at #90, Cornershop’s “Norwegian wood (this bird has flown” at #69, and Sarah McLachlan’s “Blackbird” at #58.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.