From their begin­nings as Late Night on NBC in 1982, to their end as the Late Show in 2015, David Letterman’s net­work talk show years were reli­able guides for those who shared his dis­tinc­tive musi­cal tastes. His impec­ca­ble house band was leg­endary, and he devel­oped an abid­ing love for the Foo Fight­ers in lat­er years, who played him out on his last show over an emo­tion­al mon­tage.

Oth­er stand­out musi­cal guests tend­ed toward the more off-kil­ter. Frank Zap­pa and out­sider singer-song­writer War­ren Zevon were clear favorites, their wry humor rival­ing Letterman’s own. Zevon may not have sold out sta­di­ums but made a per­fect musi­cal foil for the host, even sit­ting in once for Paul Shaf­fer.

“When it comes to music,” said Let­ter­man, intro­duc­ing Zevon, “there’s just a hand­ful of folks that I real­ly love and adore.” Sec­ond only to Zevon was anoth­er song­writer with an even more vaude­vil­lian sen­si­bil­i­ty: Tom Waits, who made his debut on Late Night in 1983 and came back every few years until one of Letterman’s final shows on May 14, 2015.

At the top, you can catch Waits’ debut appear­ance, pro­mot­ing Sword­fishtrom­bones and doing his very Bukows­ki-like spo­ken word bit “Frank’s Wild Years” and “On the Nick­el,” from a lit­tle-known 1980 skid-row themed film. In-between per­for­mances, Waits proves him­self an old hand at ban­ter, his sand­pa­per-on-asphalt voice mak­ing him sound twice as old as his ten­der 34 years at the time.

Waits returned for a sec­ond time in 1986. Fur­ther up, see his third appear­ance the fol­low­ing year, pro­mot­ing the Frank’s Wild Years, the album, a col­lec­tion of songs writ­ten by Waits, his wife Kath­leen Bren­nan, and bassist Greg Cohen for a play of the same name. (He was also com­ing off the pro­duc­tion of Iron­weed, in which he starred with Jack Nichol­son and Meryl Streep.) Just above, see Waits on the Late Show in 1999 per­form­ing “Choco­late Jesus,” a “song for those of you in the audi­ence,” he says, “who have trou­ble get­ting up on Sun­day morn­ings and going to church.”

Waits came back again in 2002 and 2004. In 2006, he released his mas­sive, three-disc Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bas­tards, which cov­ered all of the musi­cal ter­ri­to­ry he had explored over his long career, and then some. Just above, see him do “Lie to Me,” a clas­sic jazz-blues stom­per and high con­trast to his final appear­ance on Let­ter­man, below.

Waits released his last album, Bad as Me in 2011, and appeared on the show the next year. Though he’s been active since then, with act­ing roles and a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kei­th Richards in 2013, he hasn’t released any new orig­i­nal music yet save a mov­ing new song, “One Last Look,” per­formed exclu­sive­ly on that 2015 appear­ance after his last inter­view with Let­ter­man (and an inter­lop­ing George Clooney).

Despite Letterman’s retire­ment announce­ment after the end of his Late Show run, we’ve seen him return to the small screen to do what he does best on his Net­flix show My Next Guest Needs No Intro­duc­tion. Let’s hope we haven’t also heard the last of Tom Waits. Maybe Let­ter­man will have him on again soon to pro­mote yet anoth­er bril­liant record of the music only Tom Waits can make.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stream All of Tom Waits’ Music in a 24 Hour Playlist: The Com­plete Discog­ra­phy

Tom Waits Sings and Tells Sto­ries in Tom Waits: A Day in Vien­na, a 1979 Aus­tri­an Film

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

Frank Zappa’s 1980s Appear­ances on The David Let­ter­man Show

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

“R‑E-S-P-E-C‑T…” You know the rest.

When R&B leg­end Otis Red­ding, who wrote and first record­ed “Respect,” heard Aretha Franklin’s ver­sion of the song, he report­ed­ly said, “well, I guess it’s that girl’s song now.”

Aretha didn’t just cov­er Redding’s song, she “flipped the script,” notes The Wash­ing­ton Post video above, turn­ing his call for enti­tle­ment into a demand for empow­er­ment and cre­at­ing a fem­i­nist and civ­il rights anthem. She changed the lyrics to suit her, spelled it out in the cho­rus, and added the “sock it to me” refrain with her sis­ters Car­olyn and Erma—both suc­cess­ful soul singers in their own right—backing her up.

Franklin’s 1967 record­ing was “a dec­la­ra­tion of inde­pen­dence that was unapolo­getic, uncom­pro­mis­ing and unflinch­ing… a demand for some­thing that could no longer be denied…. The coun­try had nev­er heard any­thing like it.”

After Aretha reshaped it, the song “took on a uni­ver­sal­i­ty the orig­i­nal nev­er had,” says Franklin’s biog­ra­ph­er David Ritz. “It is a cred­it to her genius she was able to do so much with it. She should have been list­ed as a co-pro­duc­er of the song.”

Indeed, she might have been cred­it­ed as a co-writer of her ver­sion, but in a trag­ic irony, her biggest hit, in which she pro­claimed finan­cial inde­pen­dence and per­son­al pow­er, net­ted her exact­ly zero in roy­al­ties.

“For the rough­ly sev­en mil­lion times the song has been played on Amer­i­can radio sta­tions,” notes Ben Sis­ario at The New York Times, “she was paid noth­ing” due to “an aspect of copy­right law that has long irked the record busi­ness,” in which radio sta­tions pay the writ­ers and pub­lish­ers of songs and not the per­form­ers. This inequity has made Aretha’s “Respect” an anthem for musi­cians fight­ing for their rights as well.

But first and fore­most, Franklin’s “’Respect’… caught on with the black pow­er move­ment and fem­i­nists and human rights activists across the world,” notes the Post’s DeNeen Brown. “The coun­try was a tin­der box, as peo­ple of col­or demand­ed equal­i­ty and jus­tice that had been too long in com­ing.” Despite land­mark civ­il rights cas­es in the Supreme Court and pas­sage of the 1964 Civ­il Rights Act, resis­tance to change in both the North and South was sus­tained and often bru­tal­ly vio­lent.

For all its deep res­o­nance in the black com­mu­ni­ty, “Respect” spoke to every­one, char­ac­ter­iz­ing defi­ance to a social order that seemed intent on pre­serv­ing oppres­sive hier­ar­chies and his­toric injus­tices; “the song imme­di­ate­ly crossed over, oblit­er­at­ing col­or lines.” Released in April of 1967, it hit Num­ber One on the charts and “stayed there for at least 12 weeks.” It may not have made Franklin the mon­ey she deserved—though it made a mint for Otis Redding—but her record­ing pro­pelled her from star­dom to inter­na­tion­al super­star­dom. Hear her ver­sion fur­ther up and Redding’s orig­i­nal record­ing just above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Aretha Franklin’s Pitch-Per­fect Per­for­mance in The Blues Broth­ers, the Film That Rein­vig­o­rat­ed Her Career (1980)

Aretha Franklin’s Most Pow­er­ful Ear­ly Per­for­mances: “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Say a Lit­tle Prayer” & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Cov­er tunes are not trib­ute bands. The best cov­ers don’t aim to be car­bon copies. They expand our con­cept of the orig­i­nal with an unex­pect­ed ele­ment or fresh lens.

Would you believe me if I told you that the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain’s take on David Bowie’s “Heroes”—the sec­ond most cov­ered tune in the late rocker’s canon—is even sex­i­er than the orig­i­nal?

No?

Good.

Noth­ing ever will be.

It is, how­ev­er, a com­pelling case for the pow­er of mul­ti­ple ukule­les.

A sin­gle uke could only be dwarfed by the mem­o­ry of “Heroes”’ dri­ving, famous­ly lay­ered sound, a group effort that includ­ed pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti and gui­tarist Robert Fripp.

Bowie may have referred to the tem­po and rhythm as “plod­ding,” but co-writer Bri­an Eno’s descrip­tion of the sound as some­thing “grand and hero­ic” comes much clos­er to the mark.

Are eight ukes grand and hero­ic? Well, no. Not real­ly.

And there is some­thing unde­ni­ably humor­ous about a row of for­mal­ly attired, seat­ed, mid­dle-aged men and women, wail­ing away in uni­son with their right hands, but it’s telling that the audi­ence at New York’s mul­ti­me­dia art cabaret (le) Pois­son Rouge isn’t laugh­ing.

Admit­ted­ly, there were a few iso­lat­ed chuck­les in the begin­ning, a few notes in.

Philistines.

Prob­a­bly been dragged there on blind dates with ukulele-enthu­si­asts.

To be char­i­ta­ble, there will always be those in need of con­vinc­ing that the ukulele is a legit­i­mate instru­ment.

Who bet­ter to con­vince them than the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain, whose very name sug­gests that its mem­bers are in on the joke, and capa­ble of turn­ing it on its head?

The lyrics, as most Bowie fans can tell you, were inspired by real life, but not exact­ly Bowie’s. The tune was on sol­id foot­ing, but the words were still slow to come, when Bowie glanced out the win­dow of his Berlin record­ing stu­dio to catch a back up singer and Vis­con­ti, mar­ried at the time, enjoy­ing what they believed was a stolen kiss.

The rest, as they say is his­to­ry, kept some­what shroud­ed in mys­tery until rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly.

The Ukulele Orches­tra singers wise­ly steer clear of Bowie’s howl­ing, emo­tion­al deliv­ery, which Vis­con­ti got on tape almost before the ink on those lyrics had time to dry.

Instead, they hon­or him, and the place this song has in so many people’s hearts, with their sin­cer­i­ty.

Lis­ten to the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain’s take on Bowie’s Life on Mars here.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms Stun­ning Cov­ers of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Talk­ing Heads’ “Psy­cho Killer” & More

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 24 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

The set­ting: Lon­don. In par­tic­u­lar, Step­ney, Lon­don E1. The year, a warm sum­mer in 1974, July 21 to be exact. And a very ear­ly video cam­era, only able to shoot in black and white, records the events of the E1 Fes­ti­val, a free day out for fam­i­lies, rest­less teens, and bell bot­tomed, long-haired youth enjoy­ing the sun. There’s Indi­an musi­cians, face paint­ing, car­ni­val games, jazz bands, folk danc­ing, and a “Wellie Boot Chuck­ing Com­pe­ti­tion”. You know, “the lot,” as the Eng­lish would say. But then, around 40 min­utes in, the video­g­ra­ph­er decides to shoot the pub rock band play­ing on the main stage.

If the bespec­ta­cled 19 year old looks and sounds a bit famil­iar, well luvvies, you’re not see­ing things. This is the first filmed appear­ance of a young Elvis Costel­lo, beclad in very fetch­ing dun­ga­rees and fronting his first band Flip City. This was their third ever gig, accord­ing to the Elvis Costel­lo fan site.

A full three years before Declan Mac­Manus would change his name and burst upon the scene with My Aim Is True, here he is pay­ing his dues.

Flip City was Costello’s sec­ond group, the first being a folk rock duo called Rusty that played John Prine, Jesse Win­ches­ter, and Van Mor­ri­son cov­ers in between their own songs. After Costel­lo split from Liv­er­pool and left for Lon­don, he jumped on the pub rock band­wag­on that was already formed around Nick Lowe, Dr. Feel­go­od, and Brins­ley Schwarz, mix­ing up Amer­i­cana and R’n’B cov­ers with very British orig­i­nals. They even record­ed demos a few years after this gig, which were wide­ly boot­legged until most of them appeared on bonus tracks on var­i­ous CD reis­sues. (You can lis­ten to them here.)

But back to 1974. We have no record of their full set, but the two songs on the video are from the Coast­ers’ “I’m a Hog for You” (the B‑side of “Char­lie Brown” but cov­ered by Scream­ing Lord Sutch in 1963) and from the Isley Broth­ers, “This Old Heart of Mine,” a Motown sta­ple. Despite Costello’s ency­clo­pe­di­ac knowl­edge of music, he nev­er again played these two songs live again.

It might be 20/20 hind­sight, but one can already hear the tal­ent and the con­fi­dence (or at least mock con­fi­dence) that would soon pro­pel the young man into the charts. The rest, as they say, is much bet­ter than win­ning the wellie chuck­ing con­test.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Wave Music–DEVO, Talk­ing Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello–Gets Intro­duced to Amer­i­ca by ABC’s TV Show, 20/20 (1979)

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live (1977)

Elvis Costel­lo Sings “Pen­ny Lane” for Sir Paul McCart­ney at The White House

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

So many songs take love as their top­ic, almost by default, that we hard­ly even think of the “love song” as a dis­tinct type of musi­cal work any­more. And when we do, we often do it out of a desire for alter­na­tives: lyrics and com­po­si­tions of a more com­plex, cere­bral, and icon­ic nature, escapes from the sim­ple paeans to infat­u­a­tion, romance, and cou­ple­hood with which we can eas­i­ly feel fed up. Few singer-song­writ­ers in recent his­to­ry would seem more capa­ble of pro­vid­ing such escapes than Leonard Cohen, who nev­er shied away from look­ing at life (and when the time came, death) straight on, refus­ing to shrink from its infi­nite emo­tion­al chiaroscuro.

But Leonard Cohen, too, wrote love songs now and again. In “How Leonard Cohen Writes a Love Song,” the video essay from Poly­phon­ic above, we learn just how he tack­led that most com­mon of all musi­cal sub­jects with­out aban­don­ing his inim­itable sen­si­bil­i­ty. It first exam­ines Cohen’s song “Suzanne,” which has its ori­gins in a poem he wrote in 1966 and appeared on his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen the fol­low­ing year. Unlike almost all love songs, “Suzanne” deals with a Pla­ton­ic rela­tion­ship, in this case the one between Cohen and a woman with whom he reg­u­lar­ly drank tea and took walks around his native Mon­tre­al.

From “Suzanne” the analy­sis moves on to “Famous Blue Rain­coat” from Cohen’s 1971 album Songs of Love and Hate. The nec­es­sary bal­ance between those forces implied in the album’s title reflects Cohen’s world­view, which in the 1970s led him into an involve­ment with Bud­dhism. But he’d also looked into Sci­en­tol­ogy, which explains the song’s then-cryp­tic ques­tion “Did you ever go clear?” That counts as only one of the many cul­tur­al ref­er­ences with which Cohen lay­ers “Famous Blue Rain­coat,” as he lay­ered so much of his work; even a song osten­si­bly about love was also about much else in the world besides love.

After an unpromis­ing ini­tial release in 1984, “Hal­lelu­jah,” would go on to become Cohen’s sig­na­ture song. (Mal­colm Glad­well tells the sto­ry on his pod­cast Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry). Despite the reli­gious themes on its sur­face, “Hal­lelu­jah” has a deep­er mean­ing, so the video reveals, as a love song, albeit a love song of a mul­ti­va­lent kind. Last comes “I’m Your Man,” the title track from Cohen’s unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly syn­the­siz­er-heavy 1988 album, and itself an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly love song-like love song. But, in the words of Pitch­fork’s Dori­an Lynksey, it takes its “sen­ti­men­tal clichés — I’m addict­ed to love, I’ll do any­thing for love — to bru­tal extremes.” Though Cohen ulti­mate­ly had to admit his inabil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand, much less tame, the forces of love, nev­er did he give up try­ing to mas­ter it in song, approach­ing it in all the ways typ­i­cal love songs teach us nev­er to expect.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hal­lelu­jah!: You Can Stream Every Leonard Cohen Album in a 22-Hour Chrono­log­i­cal Playlist (1967–2016)

How Leonard Cohen & David Bowie Faced Death Through Their Art: A Look at Their Final Albums

Say Good­bye to Leonard Cohen Through Some of His Best-Loved Songs: “Hal­lelu­jah,” “Suzanne” and 235 Oth­er Tracks

Hear Leonard Cohen’s Final Inter­view: Record­ed by David Rem­nick of The New York­er

Mal­colm Glad­well on Why Genius Takes Time: A Look at the Mak­ing of Elvis Costello’s “Depor­tee” & Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah”

Lis­ten to Nick Cave’s Lec­ture on the Art of Writ­ing Sub­lime Love Songs (1999)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.