Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
![UR021: MTV Unplugged Beatles Covers (Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Hall & Oates, & more) [1990-2001] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=54,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
UR021: MTV Unplugged Beatles Covers (Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Hall & Oates, & more) [1990-2001]
121 Plays2 days ago
To celebrate The Beatles Anthology turning 30 this year, here’s a super fun collection of Beatles songs that have been played (some for the first and only time) on MTV Unplugged. Artists covered include Annie Lennox, Phil Collins, Blackstreet, Cassia Eller, Hall & Oates, Slaughter, Joe Cocker, and a duet between original Unplugged host Jules Shear and Marty Willson-Piper (The Church). There’s even a handful of Beatles tunes from Paul McCartney’s 1991 MTV Unplugged episode as well!
If you dig the show, would like to share your own Unplugged memories, offer up a correction, or connect with the show for any other reason:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on Bluesky at @willhodge.bsky.social, or
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
Recommended
![UR015: Mike Inez (Alice In Chains) [1996 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/ce95ba92-1808-4cb4-b4f5-2fb578ff7daf.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction to 'Unplugged Revisited'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Unplugged.
00:00:14
Speaker
Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to Unplugged Revisited, the podcast that celebrates, critiques, and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of MTV Unplugged.
The Beatles Anthology Nostalgia
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm your host, music journalist, pop culture anthropologist, and Unplugged obsessive, Will Hodge.
00:00:29
Speaker
I hope everyone had a fantastic November and, if you're in the U.S. at least, a nice Thanksgiving break as well, which, if you're like me, was partially spent revisiting the absolutely incredible Beatles Anthology documentary from 1995, which just recently hit Disney Plus for its 30th anniversary.
00:00:48
Speaker
The wait is almost over. In 16 minutes, it's the television event of our lifetime. The incredible music you've always loved, plus two new Beatles songs. The Beatles Anthology, next only on ABeatlesSafe.
00:01:02
Speaker
As a kid in the 80s, I had grown up listening to slash osmosing the Beatles, mostly just through my mom's old records. And while I really liked the songs, and especially John and Paul's bewitching vocal blend, The Beatles certainly felt, you know, of a stuck-in-amber ancient era to my MTV-obsessed 80s, 90s musical taste.
00:01:23
Speaker
So when the huge, sprawling anthology project first came out in 95, it felt really fun to be able to participate in something new and fresh about The Beatles. And man, did the whole anthology provide a ton of material to get excited about.
00:01:38
Speaker
Before it was all over, there was a three-night TV documentary event, three separate double albums of rarities and previously unreleased material, two newly recorded singles, Free as a Bird and Real Love, built around John's old demo tapes, a huge book, and probably a couple other things I'm leaving out.
00:01:57
Speaker
It eventually got released in this gorgeous 8-tape VHS box set, which I got for Christmas of 96 and still have on my bookshelves. And it was later upgraded to DVD, which is also on my bookshelves. And I can only hope that after this newly restored and remastered upscale version streams for a bit, that it'll also get a physical Blu-ray release. And well, I think you know where it'll end up.
00:02:20
Speaker
But while I'm over the moon about the Beatles Anthology project getting such an awesomely refreshed rollout for its 30th anniversary, including, I should note on the music side, an additional fourth volume of the anthology albums, bringing the total count of rare and previously unreleased Beatles songs to 191 tracks across the CD LP sets.
00:02:43
Speaker
And yes, it's a dream come true to finally have these on vinyl as well, as clean, reasonably priced original pressings can be a bit hard to come by. But also, I love that everything was re-released in late November, as the Beatles anthology is something that I've always sort of tightly paired with the Thanksgiving holiday.
Thanksgiving Traditions and Beatles Anthology
00:03:01
Speaker
Like, some folks have their Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, but I'll take John, Paul, George, and Ringo for my Turkey Day tradition. When it originally aired on TV back in 95, the anthology was hugely promoted as a three-night event on ABC.
00:03:16
Speaker
Sorry, A-Beatles-C as it was temporarily rebranded for a few months. And it all aired within a single week. Part 1 on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Part 2 on Thanksgiving Eve, and Part 3 on Thanksgiving night.
00:03:30
Speaker
The first one I got to watch at my own house, but because my family always traveled for Thanksgiving, I had to work pretty hard to find a spare TV for parts two and three at my extended family's place.
00:03:41
Speaker
Luckily, a few family members all lived near each other, so the Wednesday night one didn't prove too difficult. But the Thanksgiving night one found me huddled in the tiny spare room of my cousin's house down the street, since apparently I was the only one that wanted to watch the anthology and the Chris Isaac MTV Unplugged that premiered a little earlier that night, which was quite the holiday double feature.
00:04:02
Speaker
Or at least that's what everyone initially said, because by the time the anthology started, a couple cousins wanted to join in. Then a few aunts and uncles popped in and out along the way. And by the time there were like seven to eight people crammed into this tiny little side room, we thankfully got upgraded to my cousin's larger living room for the last hour or so But it still wasn't the main living room of my aunt's house up the street that had the bigger TV and the better sound system.
00:04:29
Speaker
That was reserved for the larger collection of folks watching, I think it was like Home Alone maybe? Anyways. Additionally, Volume 1 of the three-part anthology albums was also released that Thanksgiving 95 week as well. They were the greatest rock and roll band of all time.
00:04:47
Speaker
They changed the face of music forever.
00:04:52
Speaker
And now, 25 years after the screams died down,
00:05:00
Speaker
it's happening again. The Beatles Anthology, Volume 1. New music coming to record stores November 21st. You haven't heard everything yet.
Beatles Influence on MTV Unplugged
00:05:12
Speaker
So I was also listening to that and feverishly pouring over the liner notes all throughout the Thanksgiving lead up and festivities. I can vividly remember it was this double CD and Smashing Pumpkins' Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness that were kind of co-equal moment in time obsessions for me during the fall of 95.
00:05:30
Speaker
There are also some Christmas related shenanigans that I'm mentally attached to the Anthology as well, since the Free as a Bird single came out around Christmas 95, and I received and repeatedly consumed the Anthology video box set for Christmas 96. So the end of year holidays timing around all these 30th anniversary goodies is genuinely just chef's kiss perfection for me personally.
00:05:54
Speaker
So anyways, in this post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas window we find ourselves in today, all of my three decades and counting warmth and excitement for the Beatles anthology is what inspired today's episode.
00:06:06
Speaker
A super fun collection of Beatles covers that have been played, some for the first and only time, on MTV Unplugged. And this list features an incredibly talented array of artists, some of which may surprise you, but all of them really evidence the massive inspirational fingerprints the Beatles left behind and the richly intricate songwriting genius that they were working with all those years. They truly had an alchemic creative wizardry that has allowed their songs to be continually replayed, reworked, re-enjoyed, and reimagined ad infinitum.
00:06:37
Speaker
But before we jump into the full list of MTV Unplugged Beatles covers, which I'm genuinely so excited to talk about, both because of the source material and also because it serendipitously allows me to talk about some Unplugged episodes that I don't usually get to mention.
00:06:52
Speaker
But first, let's take care of a couple announcements and more on the other side of this vintage Unplugged commercial break. Unplugged. Unplugged.
00:07:03
Speaker
Week. The best of MTV Unplugged Week. Lunar.
00:07:09
Speaker
Martes. Miércoles.
00:07:30
Speaker
The best of MTV Unplugged Week is brought to you the number nine, in 9 p.m. every night this week. <unk>s m And To be fair, it's actually just one quick announcement this week. Announcement one.
00:07:45
Speaker
With last month marking the anniversary of both the original taping and eventual album release of Nirvana's game-changing MTV Unplugged, my buddy Matt Wardlaw over at Ultimate Classic Rock had me on his radio show and his podcast to talk about what made Nirvana's Unplugged so special, so unconventional, and so meaningful, both in the moment of its airing and also the additional layers it took on after Kurt's death just a few months later.
00:08:15
Speaker
Don't go to heaven where the angels fly Go to a lake of fire and fry See him again till the 4th of July I always have a blast talking to Matt about, well, anything really, but especially music and extra especially MTV Unplugged.
00:08:33
Speaker
If you didn't catch his show on air, you can hear our full chat via the Ultimate Classic Rock feed wherever you get your podcast. It was a really fun chat about an incredibly important performance and album, so I hope you check it out. And while you're there, subscribe to his show because I promise your ears are always in good hands with Matt.
00:08:50
Speaker
He's amazingly knowledgeable and just a super kind dude to boot. So go check that out. Okay, let's roll on with this episode's Uncovered. This is a segment
Rolling Stones vs. Beatles Debate
00:09:01
Speaker
where I quickly highlight a couple cool unplugged cover songs all tied around a singular theme.
00:09:06
Speaker
As I was trying to think of something that would pair nicely with The Beatles and that also wouldn't have too many entries, the age-old classic Beatles vs. Stones debate popped to mind. So while the Rolling Stones famously swerved on doing an MTV Unplugged episode themselves, instead, please see their acoustic-heavy 95 album Stripped, which also just celebrated its 30th anniversary last month.
00:09:28
Speaker
Instead, here's a pair of Rolling Stones cover songs that appeared on MTV Unplugged. First up, man, another entry from 95. This one from Kiss's Unplugged episode.
00:09:39
Speaker
Here's the first song the original lineup played together during their famous MTV Unplugged reunion, an acoustic cover of The Stones' 2000 Man, featuring the late Ace Frehley on lead vocals.
00:10:05
Speaker
And then, from a solid decade later, here's Alicia Keys covering the Stones' phenomenal Sticky Fingers ballad, Wild Horses, from her stellar 2005 episode, featuring surprise special guest Adam Levine of Maroon 5 on vocals and acoustic guitar.
00:10:21
Speaker
Wild horses Couldn't drag me away
00:10:33
Speaker
Alrighty, that was a quick and easy, but still quite tasty, uncovered side dish for y'all this week. And now it's time for our main event, our list of MTV Unplugged Beatles covers.
00:10:47
Speaker
Usually for these mixtape style shows, I'll run them down in chronological order of when an Axe Unplugged episode was originally filmed. But for this one, since it's all anchored around the Beatles, I thought it instead might be interesting to discuss them in order of the release date of the Beatles song that's actually being covered.
00:11:05
Speaker
So from an Unplugged perspective, we're going to jump all over the timeline. But from a Beatles perspective, you can kind of get a rough sketch sense of their astoundingly dynamic songwriting maturation and sonic evolution.
00:11:16
Speaker
I mean, at least as much as you can from a disparate, condensed collection of covers. But you get it. I'll also just quickly note, a lot of these covers are kind of cool unplugged rarities. Only one has been released on an unplugged album, and one more as the B-side to a single.
00:11:32
Speaker
But for the most part, these Beatles covers mostly just exist within the confines of their respective unplugged performances. And one of those didn't even make the TV broadcast. So even if you were a big unplugged head back in the day, hopefully there'll be some fun and surprising stuff for you here.
00:11:48
Speaker
Also, real quick, for those Beatles fans keeping track at home, of the eight covers here, it's broken down by four John songs, three Paul songs, and one George song.
00:11:58
Speaker
All but two of them are from the 68-69 era, and instead of just doing the big hits, there's a surprising amount of non-album singles and B-sides here, which I thought gave an interesting insight into the minds of the artists doing the covering.
00:12:13
Speaker
Alright, enough contextual table setting. Let's get into our list of MTV Unplugged Beatles covers. Can't Buy Me Love,
00:12:26
Speaker
Cause money can't buy me love. Buy me love.
00:12:36
Speaker
The earliest canonical Beatles song to get covered on an episode of MTV Unplugged was from the multi-platinum 90s R&B quartet Blackstreet, doing their Quiet Storm reworking of Can't Buy Me Love, one of the most quintessential examples of the chart-topping, world-enrapturing Beatlemania period of the band's early career.
00:12:56
Speaker
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy love, can't buy me love.
00:13:03
Speaker
The Beatles first released Can't Buy Me Love as a standalone single in March of 1964, only about a year and a half after the release of their debut single Love Me Do. And when it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 a month later, their third number one single in a row, it marked an insanely cool milestone of a single band simultaneously holding all five top positions on the Billboard Hot 100.
00:13:27
Speaker
Can't Buy Me Love at number one, Twist and Shout at number two, She Loves You at number three, I Wanna Hold Your Hand at number four, and Please Please Me at number five, which had actually been released as a single over a full year earlier.
00:13:41
Speaker
This was an incredibly insane record that held for almost 60 straight years, until the digital streaming era completely changed the musical landscape and the way charts actually operate.
00:13:52
Speaker
So while, yes, that record was technically also achieved by Drake in 2021, Taylor Swift in 2022, and Kendrick Lamar in 2024, those three examples only occurred because these days, every single song on a single-day album release is essentially being looked at as its own single.
00:14:11
Speaker
So it's really an incongruous apples-to-oranges comparison between what the Beatles did across 63 and 64 versus what's been happening over the last few years. I promise I'm not old man fist-shaking-at-the-clouds here, just contextualizing the completely different, six-decades-apart landscape.
Unique Beatles Covers on MTV Unplugged
00:14:29
Speaker
So, back to Can't Buy Me Love. Just a snapshot where the Beatles were at during this incredibly hectic and meteoric rise in their career. The song was recorded during a late January 64 studio session that had been specifically booked for them to re-record German-language versions of their previous two-hit singles. I Want to Hold Your Hand.
00:14:55
Speaker
And she loves you.
00:15:05
Speaker
And just a week or so later in early February was when they played their first ever U.S. performance when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles, let's go.
00:15:17
Speaker
Can't Buy Me Love was then released as a standalone single the very next month, and then it also appeared on the band's third album and accompanying film, A Hard Day's Night. Fast forward 30-plus years to the mid-90s, and the song got a really cool R&B revamping in the hands of Blackstreet, the Teddy Riley co-produced, co-fronted R&B group that's most well-known for their platinum-selling, chart-topping, Bill Withers sampling single, No Diggity.
00:15:44
Speaker
I like the way you work, kid. No diggity. thought to bag it up. The studio version of Blackstreet's slowed-down, grooved-out cover of Can't Buy Me Love appeared on their quadruple-platinum sophomore album Another Level in the fall of 96.
00:16:01
Speaker
And the music video, which was filmed in London, had some nice Beatles nods, including a scene of all four members traversing a crosswalk just like the iconic Abbey Road cover art.
00:16:15
Speaker
When Blackstreet's MTV Unplugged episode aired in the fall of 97, during that deeply cool R&B heavy season, they wrapped their four-part harmony around this slow jammed Beatles cover in a way that made it just one crying in the rain shot short of pure 90s R&B perfection.
00:16:44
Speaker
Rain, Jules Shearer and Marty Wilson Piper, 1990. When the rain comes.
00:16:55
Speaker
Next in line for MTV Unplugged Beatles covers, again moving through the list chronologically of how the Beatles released these songs, is original Unplugged host Jules Shear and The Church's Marty Wilson Piper doing a two-voice, two-guitar cover of the Beatles' 1966 B-side rarity Rain.
00:17:13
Speaker
I can show
00:17:19
Speaker
The Beatles first recorded Reign during the sessions for what would eventually become their seventh record, sixty six s Revolver. But it didn't actually make the album cut. It was instead tucked away as the B-side on the standalone single of Paperback Writer, which came out a few months prior to Revolver.
00:17:36
Speaker
And these two songs really bridged the band's sonic shift from the conventional folk and soul influences of 1965's Rubber Soul into the more experimental psychedelia and pop art flavors that first started showing up on Revolver and really took flight on Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour.
00:17:55
Speaker
For Rain, the band played around with such studio trickery as recording John's vocals on a slowed down tape machine so that playback at normal speed would produce an altered higher tone and recording the backing instrumental tracks at a higher speed, producing a slower, slightly stretched out tonal texture when played back at normal speed.
00:18:14
Speaker
Rain is also notable for being one of the first pop songs to prominently feature backwards vocals.
00:18:26
Speaker
Rain also has the distinction of being the first MTV Unplugged Beatles cover to appear on the show, and it popped up pretty early, like show number six of the first season, which was filmed on January 30th, 1990, the very next day after the first official non-pilot episode was broadcast.
00:18:44
Speaker
As previously mentioned many times on the podcast, MTV Unplugged actually launched under a slightly different format than it became known for. Originally, it had a host, and each episode featured two artists. In this case, it was Sinead O'Connor and The Church, an Australian alt-rock band best known for their vibey, late-80s hit Under the Milky Way.
00:19:05
Speaker
Under the Milky Way tonight
00:19:10
Speaker
And while Sinead and the Church didn't do the conventional Unplugged move of playing a song together, the Church's lead singer at the time, Marty Wilson Piper, did do a song with Unplugged's original host, Jules Shear.
00:19:23
Speaker
The duo decided just the night before to try their hand at an acoustic cover of Rain, and their laid-back, folksy twin-guitar strum-along provides a really cool sonic variant to the Beatles' trippy, bass-forward, full-band original.
00:19:46
Speaker
I don't mind. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Cassia Eller, 2001. It
00:20:05
Speaker
was 20 years today, it's Sergeant Pepper called the band to play. Okay, listen, it is a fool's errand to try and wax poetic in just a few sentences about the expansive sonic and visual footprint, cultural impact, and continued legacy of the Beatles' 1967 quasi-concept album slash inarguable studio masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
00:20:40
Speaker
More than anything I could ever say about it, you'd be better served just carving out 45 minutes to listen to the whole thing yourself. So in the spirit of brevity, let's just briefly talk about the album's opening title track.
00:20:51
Speaker
The unconventionally built, choriceless, absolute fever dream of a sing-along that, while the Beatles themselves never played it live, has experienced some pretty cool live versions in the hands of other artists.
00:21:04
Speaker
Like, Jimi Hendrix famously played the song in concert, with Paul and George reportedly in the audience only three days after the album was first released. Cheap Trick covered the entire Sgt. Pepper's album in concert with a huge orchestra, which was later released as their Sgt. Pepper live record.
00:21:22
Speaker
And in 2005, U2, Paul McCartney, and a four-piece horn ensemble decked out in Sgt. Pepper regalia, played it to kick off the London portion of the Live 8 global concerts.
00:21:33
Speaker
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band We hope you will enjoy the show
00:21:43
Speaker
The MTV Unplugged iteration of Sgt. Pepper's was courtesy of the late Brazilian rocker Cassia Eller, who filmed her Unplugged episode for MTV Brazil under the Acoustico MTV banner in 2001. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely, Sgt.
00:21:56
Speaker
Pepper's Lonely, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, wow!
00:22:04
Speaker
Marked by its piano-led, double-cajone hand drum groove, Cassia's unplugged version of Sgt. Pepper's was also the only English-language song of her unplugged set, as throughout her career she mostly sang in her native Portuguese. Cassia's unplugged ended up being filmed and broadcast in the same year that she sadly passed away from a heart issue. But she did get to see the dynamic performance get released as her Acoustico MTV album. which went on to sell over a million copies and win a Latin Grammy for Best Brazilian Rock Album in 2002. The album is also bookended by a couple other cool covers a French singer Edith Piaf and 60s Tropicalia legends Os Mutantes, so you should do yourself a solid and give it a test spin sometime to see if you dig it.
00:22:49
Speaker
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart
00:23:06
Speaker
Lady Madonna, Phil Collins, 1994. Lady Madonna, children at your feet. Wonder how the night is too many getting me.
00:23:18
Speaker
If Rain and Sgt. Peppers help snapshot the Beatles' brief but monumental psychedelia period, the non-album stand-alone single for Lady Madonna embodies their early 68 quasi-return-to-form transition back to a more conventional yet expanding pop rock sonic space.
00:23:36
Speaker
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlegs See how they run Lady Madonna The Lady Madonna single also marked an important transition period for the band outside of just their continuing songwriting evolution, as it was the last single to be released on their old UK label Parlophone as they were just starting to launch their own Apple Records venture.
00:24:01
Speaker
And it was released with the intention of giving the group a little bit of a break while they traveled to Rishikesh, India to attend an ill-fated three-month transcendental meditation retreat, which didn't end up pleasantly for any of the band members, but did inspire a substantial amount of material for what would become their sonically sprawling self-titled double record, aka The White Album, which came out about eight months after the release of the Lady Madonna single.
00:24:27
Speaker
Such legendary artists as Aretha Franklin, Bats Domino, and Elvis Presley have all signed off on Lady Madonna's boogie-woogie blues rock bona fides by covering the song at various points in their illustrious careers.
00:24:40
Speaker
And Phil Collins added his sonic co-sign to the club in 1994, when he worked up an even livelier version of the song for his MTV Unplugged episode that was filmed for MTV Europe.
00:24:51
Speaker
Not only was this one of those cool, unexpected, just-for-unplugged cover songs that the show was known for throughout the 90s, but also, instead of just doing a straight cover, Phil cleverly crafted it as a seamless, extended intro to his own mid-80s hit, Susudio. whose signature synthesizers, synth bass, and drum machine-fueled dance pop riffs sounded incredibly cool translated over into the live instrumentation setting of Unplugged.
00:25:31
Speaker
And also, since this is audio only, i can confirm that yes, that's Phil very briefly rocking the congas before Susudio fully gets going.
00:25:44
Speaker
Revolution, Slaughter, 1991. ninety ninety one This is a song of a band that we all love and grew up with. This is a song called Revolution by The Beatles.
00:26:12
Speaker
Right in between the March 68 release of the Lady Madonna single and the White Album coming out that November, the Beatles dropped their Hey Jude single in late August, and on the B-side was a fuzzed out little blues rock shuffle called Revolution.
00:26:35
Speaker
This counterculture commentary song was written by John during an especially turbulent period of the Vietnam War that saw a ratcheting up of massive anti-war protests and student demonstrations, especially across the U.S., as well as the broader global societal upheaval of the late 1960s that was spurned on by calls for radical change across a wide variety of socio-political concerns.
00:27:00
Speaker
The song was crafted during the White Album sessions, and actually ended up being recorded in two sonically different arrangements. The first iteration was a slower acoustic blues version. That's the one that appears on the White Album as Revolution No. 1.
00:27:26
Speaker
John had actually wanted to release it as a single, but Paul and George said it was too slow, which was probably just a front for them actually being concerned about the song's messaging. So they ended up recording the more aggressive, distortion guitar-led version that ended up as the B-side to the Hey Jude single.
00:27:51
Speaker
Technically, there's also a third iteration of the song, Revolution No. 9, also on the White Album, which is an avant-garde sound collage that was originally built as part of the bluesy acoustic Revolution No. 1, but was later split out into its own separate song. number nine
00:28:09
Speaker
number nine number nine
00:28:14
Speaker
But hey, this is an unplugged podcast, not a Beatles podcast, so let's not get too bogged down in all the beautiful Beatles minutia, alright?
00:28:25
Speaker
When heavy metal rocker Slaughter filmed their MTV Unplugged during the show's second season in 1991, it ended up being the last Unplugged episode to employ that original two-act structure. MTV Unplugged, more from Winger and Slaughter right after this.
00:28:41
Speaker
They shared the episode with fellow melodic hard rockers, Winger, and so they only ended up playing two songs. Their top 20 power ballad hit, Fly to the Angels,
00:28:58
Speaker
and their one-time only cover of The Beatles' Revolution. Alright. Their unplugged cover is a pretty true-blue, no-frills acoustic take on the original, but there is one notable lyrical tweak that firmly timestamps this one-off performance to its March 5, 1991 taping.
00:29:22
Speaker
Filmed less than a week after U.S.-led coalition forces liberated Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, which closed out Operation Desert Storm and effectively ended the Gulf War, lead singer Mark Slaughter took the opportunity to swap out Lenin's original mention Mao Zedong for a more contemporary dictator du jour.
00:29:40
Speaker
But if you go carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein, well, I'll tell you the brothers here thinking you're insane. One more unplugged related rabbit trail on Revolution.
00:29:51
Speaker
Back in 1987, against the wishes of the surviving Beatles members, I should preface, Revolution ended up being the very first Beatles song to get licensed for a television commercial.
00:30:02
Speaker
Nike ended up licensing it from Capital EMI, who owned the recording rights, and ATV Music Publishing, who held the publishing rights. And ATV was actually owned by Michael Jackson, who had purchased the company, including the rights to the Beatles catalog, just two years prior. But that's a whole other story for a whole other podcast.
00:30:22
Speaker
So the Beatles themselves, who, again, didn't own the rights to their songs, actually couldn't stop it. And they ended up filing a lawsuit, which eventually got settled out of court and blah, blah, blah. It was a whole big story at the time.
00:30:35
Speaker
Anyway, the random Unplugged connection to that story is that when Sheryl Crow played her Unplugged in 95, she performed the Na Na song, which contains this playful Fever Dream lyric.
00:30:52
Speaker
And that's a direct tongue-in-cheek reference to that whole debacle, which was made even more interconnectedly spaghettified by the fact that A, Crow used to tour with Michael Jackson as a backup vocalist and duet partner, and B, Sony and Jackson completed their massive merger where they reportedly paid Jackson $110 million dollars for a 50% stake in the newly created Sony ATV company in 1995, the same year Crow did her unplugged.
00:31:21
Speaker
Okay, was that like three left turns to make a right? Who's to say? But the more you know, right?
00:31:29
Speaker
Don't Let Me Down. Hall & Oates, 1990, and Annie Lennox, 1992. This one's a twofer, as both Hall & Oates... All right.
00:31:42
Speaker
Don't let me down. And a newly solo Annie Lennox... Don't let me down. Both chose their respective MTV Unplugged episodes to whip up their own unique unplugged and haven't been played since covers of the Beatles' stellar 1969 B-side, Don't Let Me Down. Don't let me down.
00:32:18
Speaker
This Billy Preston-blessed, Fender Rhodes-led number was recorded during the January-February 1969 Let It Be sessions, as seen in the incredible Get Back documentary that came out over Thanksgiving 2021, currently streaming on Disney+. plus And they actually performed it twice during their final public performance, the famous rooftop concert they played on January 1969, seen in the,
00:32:43
Speaker
ah not quite as incredible Let It Be documentary that first came out in 1970, faded into obscurity for a few decades, and then finally showed back up in 2024, again on Disney+. plus However, the song itself ended up mind-blowingly being relegated to B-side status. as it was released as the flip side to the April 69 Get Back single. And then, again mind-blowingly, it was kept off the actual Let It Be album that came out in May 1970.
00:33:13
Speaker
And that wasn't because it had already appeared on a single, because Get Back still made it on to Let It Be. So, who knows? Either way, the fact that this song is technically just a B-side is straight bananas, but it does carry some extra shine for being the very last, uh, complete and uninterrupted song that the Beatles ever played live together. Because for that Apple rooftop gig during the actual last song, Get Back, the British cops, with a little help from a reluctant Mal Evans, ended up briefly shutting off John and George's guitar amps creating a temporary drum and bass and electric piano version of the song.
00:34:02
Speaker
the guys just anticlimactically turned their amps back on and kept going.
00:34:12
Speaker
What do you say we get back to talking about Don't Let Me Down? So, back during MTV Unplugged's first season in 1990, right after Don Henley's early solo episode had the Unplugged crew completely rethinking the whole two-act structure, Hall & Oates ended up being the first group to kick off Unplugged's new single artist showcase format.
00:34:32
Speaker
And since the special unplugged cover song precedent had already been set back during the pilot episode, they decided to roll out a cool acoustic cover of Don't Let Me Down, which beautifully showed off their signature vocal harmony interplay.
00:34:46
Speaker
Don't
00:34:54
Speaker
Now, earlier I said this cover was unique to Unplugged, but that's stretching things just a little bit because they had actually played this song before, but just once, and it was only about a week and a half prior to their Unplugged taping.
00:35:07
Speaker
They had actually worked it up for a huge John Lennon tribute concert in Liverpool that was put on by Yoko Ono in honor of what would have been John's 50th birthday that coming October.
00:35:18
Speaker
Other artists who performed that day included Cyndi Lauper, Al Green, Roberta Flack, Lenny Kravitz, Terence Trent Darby, Lou Reed, and many others. For their part of the Lennon Tribute concert, Hall & Oates covered Julia, which was originally from the White Album, and Don't Let Me Down.
00:35:36
Speaker
I believe those two back-to-back performances are the only times that the duo played this cover and they never ended up doing a studio version or anything. So I'm going to still count it as unique to Unplugged, but maybe with a slight asterisk.
00:35:49
Speaker
Don't let me down. A couple years later, in 1992, when Annie Lennox was touring behind her soon-to-be Grammy-winning double-platinum-debut solo record, Diva, she filmed her stellar MTV Unplugged episode in a curiously unconventional setting, the Montreux Casino, during the 92 Montreux Jazz Festival.
00:36:10
Speaker
While the concert stage aesthetics, crowd size, and overall music festival vibe weren't exactly the typical MTV Unplugged fare, Annie's songcraft-centered, eurythmic-spiced, covers-rich set was beautifully executed and everything you could hope for in an MTV Unplugged episode.
00:36:28
Speaker
She ended up closing out her incredible set with an entrancing liquid slink cover of Don't Let Me Down, a song whose studio version can be found as one of the B-sides on her UK CD single of Walking on Broken Glass, and whose MTV Unplugged version can be found as one of the B-sides on the third version of her CD single of Cold.
00:36:50
Speaker
And it's not only a truly beautiful live performance of the song, but it's also pretty rare, as I don't believe she ever played Don't Let Me Down live before or since her unplugged taping.
00:37:12
Speaker
Joe Cocker, 1992 Finally, a George song, right? Inarguably one of the most sonically brilliant, widely covered, massively popular Beatles songs.
00:37:34
Speaker
Something was written by George Harrison as a love song to his first wife, Patti Boyd. Yes, unplugged related side note, the exact same woman who inspired Eric Clapton's Layla. And it first started showing up during recording sessions for the White Album.
00:37:49
Speaker
Because Harrison was limited to only two tracks max per Beatles albums, he initially envisioned this song going to another artist. So that's how, within just a couple months of each other in late 1969, Something was almost simultaneously released on both the Beatles' Abbey Road, their final recording but penultimate release, and also Joe Cocker's self-titled second album.
00:38:13
Speaker
Something in the west you move
00:38:24
Speaker
Curiously enough, the Beatles also released something as a double A-side single paired with Come Together a couple weeks after Abbey Road came out, which made it a bit of a novel curiosity in their singles chronology, being that it was the first George song to get an A-side single release and the first time they put out a single of songs that had already been released on an album, problem though granted it was only by about two weeks or so.
00:38:48
Speaker
Now, Joe was certainly no stranger to covering Beatles songs. On the same album as Something, he also included a cover of She Came In Through the Bathroom Window. Also, his debut album, released just a couple months prior, was called With a Little Help From My Friends and included his studio version of that song.
00:39:06
Speaker
And whether you were actually at Woodstock in 1969 or just watched TV in the 80s, I'm sure you're at least tangentially familiar with his goosebump-inducing live version of that Sgt. Pepper standout. whata's What would you do if I sang out of tune?
00:39:24
Speaker
Would you stand up and walk out on me? Let me your ears and I'll sing you a song. I will turn out to sing Alec King.
00:39:43
Speaker
So, when Joe filmed his MTV Unplugged episode in 1992, coincidentally also during the 92 Montreux Jazz Festival, just the day before Annie Lennox recorded hers, it probably didn't exactly surprise anyone that he included his cover of the Beatles' Something in his set.
00:40:01
Speaker
However, the song ended up being cut from the broadcast, so I don't actually have a clip of it to play for you.
Paul McCartney's Unplugged Performance
00:40:07
Speaker
Pardon me while I tune up this tiny violin here. But to give you a little taste of his episode, still in a Beatles-adjacent vein, here's his MTV Unplugged cover of You Are So Beautiful, which was originally written by Billy Preston, who of course played the electric piano on the Beatles' Don't Let Me Down.
00:40:39
Speaker
You are so beautiful to me.
00:40:51
Speaker
Okay, so to close this episode out, it's always a fun slash potential throwing hands topic of discussion as to whether or not it should be considered a quote-unquote capital C cover when a member of a band ends up going solo and then still performs songs from their previous band.
00:41:08
Speaker
I mean, I personally think no, but to each his own, right? Either way, it would be downright irresponsible, verging on criminal, to have a podcast episode about MTV Unplugged Beatles covers and not briefly talk about the Beatles songs that Paul McCartney played during his incredibly cool MTV Unplugged episode from 91. Oh, thank you. Thanks for all your woo and yeah and woohoo and all of that.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah, in fact, let's have a little more of that, can we?
00:41:37
Speaker
Now, I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on setting this one up because Paul's MTV Unplugged unquestionably deserves its own standalone episode. But just a few notable bullet points. One, Paul went as unplugged as you could get by foregoing any direct amplification and instead just setting up mics in front of the acoustic instruments.
00:41:57
Speaker
Two, his episode was one of the earliest to really show a lot of thought and intention in creating a uniquely singular one-off unplugged performance, as his set was an expertly crafted mixture of early influences, Beatles faves, solo rarities, and even one of his earliest songs, I Lost My Little Girl, that he wrote when he was just a teenager.
00:42:18
Speaker
And three, Paul's Unplugged was also the first one to get an official album, though it wasn't a full-on traditional release and instead was just a limited run offering to get ahead of bootleggers.
00:42:30
Speaker
But as far as the Beatles numbers he played during his Unplugged taping, he actually pulled out seven of them, a couple for the first time ever, and he cleverly plucked them from various album and single releases all across the catalog.
00:42:42
Speaker
That night, he performed And I Love Her and Things We Said Today, both from 1964's A Hard Day's Night, She's a Woman, which was the B-side to their I Feel Fine single from late 64, a beautiful twin guitar take on Blackbird from nineteen sixty eight s the White Album,
00:42:59
Speaker
We Can Work It Out, which was released as a single in late 65 on the same day as Rubber Soul, and whose unplugged version provided a nice reminder that this songwriting Superman was, in fact, also a mere mortal who occasionally forgets his own lyrics.
00:43:16
Speaker
Hang
00:43:20
Speaker
on, hang on, hang on. I only got the words wrong, didn't I? Been a long time. This is so informal. We'll start again.
00:43:33
Speaker
a few more. Woo-hoo! Yeah!
00:43:40
Speaker
Wait a minute. What is the word? Do I have to? I got it. I got it. One, two, three, four. And as far as those Beatles live debuts, he played, for the first time ever, Here, There, and Everywhere from 1966's Revolver.
00:43:59
Speaker
there and everywhere and i've just seen a face from 1965's help i've just seen the face can't forget the time or place we first met she's just the girl for me i want all the world to see we've met
00:44:18
Speaker
And almost all of these were included on his unplugged album release, except one, Things We
Episode Wrap-Up
00:44:23
Speaker
Said Today. So, just in case you haven't heard it before, here's Paul's unplugged take on it. Someday when I'm lonely, wishing you were so far away, then I will remember things we said today.
00:44:44
Speaker
There we go. Eight MTV Unplugged Beatles covers and seven additional Beatles songs played on MTV Unplugged by one of the Fab Four himself. If you haven't already checked out the new streaming version of the Beatles anthology on Disney+, plus I can only hope this may have sparked a little interest for you. as it's genuinely one of the most incredible musical documentaries that's ever been made.
00:45:06
Speaker
It's well worth the time investment to see what exactly it is about this band whose songs transcended music and deeply impacted pop culture in a way that perhaps no other band has or ever will.
00:45:18
Speaker
And if I missed an MTV Unplugged Beatles cover from another artist, please, please, please let me know. I'd love to correct my oversight, but also just hear it for myself. Also, being year-end, I'd like to take just a quick, sappy, sentimental moment to say thank you so incredibly much for listening to Unplugged Revisited this year. I've said multiple times that I mostly just make this show for myself because I have such a fun time putting it together, but it really does mean a lot to know that other people are digging it and trusting me with their precious time.
00:45:48
Speaker
And also a big thank you to all the artists, musicians, and unplugged folks that appeared on the show this year, including Nathan East from Eric Clapton's band, Speech Ishii and Raza Don from Arrested Development, Mark Bryan from Hootie and the Blowfish, Mike Inez from Alice in Chains, Trey Lorenz from Mariah Carey's crew, Fergal Lawler from The Cranberries, And of course, John Veazey and Alex Coletti for all of their unplugged behind-the-scenes stories.
00:46:13
Speaker
Oh, and Rob Harvilla from 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. I appreciate him so much for chatting with me, and I had such a fun time on that episode. I've already got a really cool batch of artists shaping up for 2026, so I hope you stay tuned to the podcast.
00:46:27
Speaker
And with that, I can hear the house band trying to play me off. So, if you'd like to share your own Unplugged memories, offer up a correction, or connect with the show for any other reason, you can send me an email, unpluggedrevisited at gmail.com. Leave a voicemail by calling 234-REVISIT, which is 234-738-4748, you can reach out on social media.
00:46:50
Speaker
As always, please take a moment to follow the pod on your platform of choice so that it'll automatically pop into your feed when it goes live next year. Until then, my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.
00:47:04
Speaker
Unplugged Revisited is a son of a butch production. The show is written and hosted by me, Will Hodge. The show is edited by Amanda Hodge and myself. Podcast artwork is by Jordan Ullam, and you can find more of their incredible work at jordanullam.design.
00:47:18
Speaker
That's J-O-R-D-A-N-U-L-L-O-M.design. That is the beauty of Unplugged.