venta

It's Friday, it's about 3 o'clock. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Today's cover version [link to mp3 expired]

That was The Ukranians covering The Queen Is Dead, originally by The Smiths.

A few weeks ago I ruled out a cover because I felt the lyrics had been changed too much. In all honesty, I have no idea about the lyrics here. I believe that they've only been translated, but my Ukrainian isn't very good so it's hard to be sure.

Istoriya is Ukranians best-of which provides a good introduction to them. There's a few covers there to catch on to, and a few songs about which I have no idea but they sound like a slightly politer Gogol Bordello. With lots of twiddly string bits. And some nice a capella harmony bits. And the album tracklisting is lettered in cyrillic, which makes me happy.

I think it's best to take the Michael Flanders approach: I've no idea what it's about, I just look on it as a jolly pleasing noise.