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MLT – Cover Requests
I know there are dozens of Beatles songs the MLT would love to cover if they had the time. Here are some non-Beatles sixties songs that are crying out for some MLT attention. I have given my reasons for my picks.
The Hollies: MLT has done ‘Bus Stop’ brilliantly. How about:
Just One Look, Jennifer Eccles, Carrie Anne, Look Through Any Window, On a Carousel, Sorry Suzanne or this one:The reason for my selection is it gives Mona the opportunity to give her favourite 12 string another workout while also allowing Lisa to show off the banjo skills I’ve heard the MLT have.
The following is an extract from one of MLT’s “Orange” album interviews:
“There was a powerful beauty in keeping it simple back then when we were 16 years of age, but for this release some of the songs were begging for more complex instrumentation: strings, piano, banjo, some brass and loads of quirky little details. From minimalistic to big orchestra sounds – whatever it takes to tell the story best.” -
232 Replies
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While there are so many cover songs I ‘d love to see MLT tackle, Beatles and otherwise… I’ d love to hear their rendition of both “Paperback Writer” and ” Long and Winding Road”, as for Non-Beatles…. Hmmm… Not sure… Lol… Just so gall darn many I can picture in my mind’s ears of them doing… Whatever the song choices… Guaranteed an ear pleaser, toe tapping, hand clapping and finger snapping, with a sing-along with them added bonus ?
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Call me a crazy heretic, but there’s actually one song from the 80’s that I’d love to hear them take a crack at: The Bangles’ “If She Knew What She Wants”. I won’t post the video here because… well, it’s the 80’s.
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And David… There’s The Bangles song : “Going Down To Liverpool”….
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Love Affair had a huge hit in 1968 with their cover of “Everlasting Love”. They also had a hit in the same year with “Rainbow Valley”, and yes, you guessed it, I think our favourite Twins could smash this one too. I would love to see their cover!
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While the MLT do the absolute best Beatles and 60s covers I’ve ever heard bar none, I find their exploration into other genres like Steve Harleys Best Years of Our Lives, and David Bowies Starman and Little Drummer Boy even more incredibly breathtaking and beautiful. These latter songs I think enables Mona and Lisa’s powerful singing and sublime harmonies to skyrocket beyond the boundaries of 60s rock genre and shine in all their glory. Truly, truly remarkable. I think Mona and Lisa’s harmonies are more powerful than the Beatles, Beach Boys or Simon and Garfunkle harmonies ever were. Would love to hear a cover or original that would spotlight the full potential of Mona and Lisa’s incredible vocals and harmonies.
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From the Hollies I believe they could do a great job on “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”. The song has room for innovative arrangements by MLT.
I’ll put a plug in for my favorite 1960s non-Beatle song……I’ve requested it before and it is “Summer Song” by Chad and Jeremy. Concerning this song……much to my disgust they have put it on a beer commercial recently in the US. These things should just not be done. Mike.
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In the spirit of this post, some 60s non Beatles songs I would love to hear MLT do would be.
Procul Harum. Lighter Shade of Pale. I could just imagine a creative MLT version of this one would be stellar.
Turtles, Happy Together
Kinks, Tired of Waiting for You.
Beach Boys. I think MLT arrangement of Sloop John B or Wouldnt it be Nice would be awesome. Or Then I Kissed Her reverted back to Then I Kissed Him for MLT.
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“Sloop John B” is my favourite Beach Boys recording and I have previously suggested it as a potential MLT cover also.
The Kinks, Tired of Waiting for You would be nice but my preferred MLT cover would be for “Waterloo Sunset”, “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” or “Sunny Afternoon” (in their “Daydream” style perhaps).
As for the Turtles, my preference would be for “She’d Rather Be with Me” or their cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe”. I’m sure there’s an MLT live audio of this from a radio show somewhere, but not the Turtles’version.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is a brilliant and classic sixties song but I have never seen any covers to compare with Procul Harum’s original. It would be difficult for anyone to cover successfully and is heavily dependant on the extraordinary vocals of Gary Brooker and unique Hammond organ sound from Matthew Fisher who eventually won a partial co-writing credit in 2009. However, Annie Lennox released a brilliant cover in 1995.
The following is an extract from Wikipedia. Rather long but very interesting. I recommend you read the full Wikipedia article if you can find the time.
“‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is the debut single by the British rock band Procol Harum, released 12 May 1967. The single reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June 1967 and stayed there for six weeks. Without much promotion, it reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. One of the anthems of the 1967 Summer of Love, it is one of the best selling singles in history, having sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.With its Bach-derived instrumental melody, soulful vocals, and unusual lyrics – by the song’s co-authors Gary Brooker, Keith Reid and Matthew Fisher – “A Whiter Shade of Pale” reached number 1 in many countries when released in 1967. In the years since it has become an enduring classic. It was the most played song in the last 75 years in public places in the UK (as of 2009), and the United Kingdom performing rights group Phonographic Performance Limited in 2004 recognised it as the most-played record by British broadcasting of the past 70 years. Also in 2004, Rolling Stone placed “A Whiter Shade of Pale” 57th on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
In 1977, the song was named joint winner (along with Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”) of “The Best British Pop Single 1952–1977” at the Brit Awards.
The song is in moderate time in C major and is characterised by the bassline moving stepwise downwards in a repeated pattern throughout. In classical music, this is known as a ground bass. The harmonic structure is identical for the organ melody, the verse, and the chorus, except that the chorus finishes with a cadence. The main organ melody appears at the beginning and after each verse/chorus. But it is also heard throughout, playing variations of its theme and counterpointing the vocal line. As the chorus commences “And so it was, that later …”, the vocal and organ accompaniment begin a short crescendo, with the organist running his finger rapidly down and up the entire keyboard. The final instrumental fades out to silence – a common device in pop music of the time.
A BBC Radio 4 programme in the 2018 series “Soul Music” pointed out the resemblance between the Hammond Organ line of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and J.S.Bach’s Air from his Orchestral Suite No. 3 BWV1068, (the “Air on the G string”) where the sustained opening note of the main melodic line flowers into a free-flowing melody against a descending bass line.
Our problem is Jung, there is so much we’d like the MLT to do and unfortunately for us, they are just a small family ‘cottage industry’ with limited resources and most of their time needs to be devoted to creating their own original masterpieces!
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Hiya Howard,
just browsing through and found your comments on MLT cover songs,
you posted a pretty comprehensive list of songs and interesting facts, one being Procul Harlem, the one that caught my attention was the Annie Lenox version, WOOOOW what a tune, i grew up with the Procul Harlem version in the Top Of The Pops days but never really liked it – BUT the Annie Lennox version blew me away – along with the video of the day I think this was a much, Much better version.
To hear Mona & Lisa sing and play on it would be the icing on the cake – I’m sure they would get global recognition for it, i hope they try it some day
Thanks for the info
P:)
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The TURTLES ~ “IT AIN’T ME BABE” 1965
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I’d love to hear MLT cover this, or almost any of the Turtles’ hits. I mentioned a while back that “Sweet Lorraine” sounds as if it’s structured along the lines of a Turtles song, with restrained verses that crescendo into a driving refrain. So this should certainly be in their wheelhouse.
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I know what you mean David. The MLT certainly share that beautiful, positive and happy sixties sound and wonderful harmonies of groups like the Turtles. This is probably my favourite from them:
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Ah, so many great songs, Howard! My favorite would probably be “Elenore”. I don’t know why, but every time I hear the refrain I just have to sing along in falsetto with the high part.
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I would go with Elenore, too. Quirky lyrics (et cetera). Great drum part and generally a “feel good” song. There are a couple of lines that border on risqué, though.
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However, getting back to the Hollies, this song has MLT stamped all over it. The video is also an excellent example of the Hollies rather unique recording process in the sixties. “The Hollies Remember – On a Carousel (various session segments)”, EMI Abbey Road studio, 1967.
Now I’m sure Lisa would just love to have a go at Hicks’ guitar work here and Mona at Bobby Elliot’s drumming style and the vocals are just crying out for the MonaLisa treatment!
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I think with some creative arrangement, MLT could transform Whiter Shade of Pale into something brilliant and special in their own style while doing it great justice just like they did with Time of The Season. Thanks for the info about Whiter Shade of Pale. I didn’t relate it to Bach, but I can definitely see some resemblance. I’ve always felt rock, especially in the hard rock guitar riffs, there is a lot in common to classical music of Bach and Beethoven. They come from the same place I think. I would love to elaborate more on that here, but I’m currently on a cruise ship on the Canadian Atlantic coast and I can only find spotty wifi at coffee shops at occasional port of calls this week. Fortunately missed the path of hurricane Dorian by a day and a half.
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Well done with your cruise ship on the Canadian Atlantic Jung. You certainly get around. And very fortunate missing hurricane Dorian. We have been ravaged by many bush fires here this week as we haven’t had any rain for ages and everything is so dry. Couple that with an early summer and very windy conditions and our firefighters are stretched in two of our Eastern states. Don’t forget you can pick up some MLT music on Spotify if you aren’t able to access their albums or Jukebox!
I agree with you about MLT and “A Whiter shade Of Pale”. It would truly be something else. However, it would be a major project and would probably take too much of their valuable time from their important new album work. Perhaps next year they’ll have some spare time to satisfy our constant covers requests.
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Agreed Howard. MLT has stated from the start their priority is their original music creation and I totally support that.
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Somewheres I do recall on here or elsewhere where I had mentioned of Sloop John B as well for a possible MLT cover as I can easily see them doing this… It would groovyingly work…. As for all the classical music jargon…. I have no clue as Classical music not really my cup of musical tea… Lol… Funny how we all seem to eventually come around to riding the same Groovy MLTBuzzing Thinking Waves…..
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That’s always been one of my favorites! John B(ehle). It was nice to have a song to kind of make up for the incredibly common name at the time. Not a sloop person though. More of a speedboat kind of personality. Tried sailboarding once and the wind died and trapped me in the middle of a lake at sunset. I like engines 🙂
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Maybe time for another Elvis cover. How about this one in their “That’s All Right, Mama” and “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” (Nancy Sinatra Cover) live style.
I can just imagine the MLT doing this live, with Mona on acoustic guitar, swinging her hips Elvis the Pelvis style. Or, better still, a studio version with Mona on drums and acoustic, Lisa on guitar, Rudi on bass and Michaela on saxophone!
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