Thanks to The Wall Street Jour­nal, you can endure box­er Man­ny Pac­quiao singing a ver­sion of John Lennon’s 1971 peace anthem, Imag­ine. It’s pret­ty painful, not quite as painful as tak­ing a Pac­quiao punch, but painful nonethe­less. We float­ed it on Twit­ter (fol­low us here) and we were quick­ly remind­ed that Pac­quiao is hard­ly the first per­son to butch­er The Bea­t­les. (No real knock on him, we’re just hav­ing some fun here.) So we start­ed pulling togeth­er your favorites. What are the worst Bea­t­les’ cov­ers you’ve ever heard — ones so bad, they’re good? Let us know in the com­ments or on Twit­ter, and we’ll start adding them to the post.

In 1968, William Shat­ner, rid­ing high on his Star Trek fame, released his first music album, The Trans­formed Man. It fea­tured poet­ry mixed with pop lyrics and a near­ly blas­phe­mous ver­sion of Lucy in the Sky with Dia­monds. It’s here that the cheese began.

Also in 1968, the young come­di­an Bill Cos­by released Bill Cos­by Sings Hooray For The Sal­va­tion Army Band!. The par­o­dy album starts with Cos­by singing a semi-seri­ous ver­sion of Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. It was a high point for nei­ther the come­di­an nor the band.

Tel­ly Savalas — you know him from Kojak — sings George Har­rison’s Some­thing in a very lounge lizard kind of way. So awful it’s awe­some.

Michael McK­ean (This is Spinal Tap!) offers up this: Mil­ton Berle singing The Yel­low Sub­ma­rine. It was­n’t one of The Bea­t­les’ best songs, let’s admit it. But Berle did­n’t exact­ly ele­vate it. Uncle Miltie’s record­ing was made in 1968 (do you see a trend here?), not long after the ani­mat­ed Yel­low Sub­ma­rine hit the­aters.

From her 1966 album Way Out West, old time movie star Mae West sings Day Trip­per. Rec­om­mend­ed by @tonymolloy.

Sean Con­nery talk­ing his way through In My Life. And amaz­ing­ly George Mar­tin is respon­si­ble for this.

You can’t talk about so-bad-they’re-good Bea­t­les cov­ers with­out giv­ing a nod to Wing. The Hong Kong-born singer, now based in New Zealand, has record­ed a full album in her out-of-tune singing style. Is it par­o­dy? Is it seri­ous? Who knows. Her album can be had here: Wing Sings the Bea­t­les

Elva Ruby Connes Miller, oth­er­wise known as Mrs. Miller, cov­ered numer­ous songs dur­ing the 1960s, includ­ing A Hard Day’s Night. Her voice was com­pared to the sound of “roach­es scur­ry­ing across a trash can lid.” More recent­ly, this clip was fea­tured on EarBleed.com … for pret­ty good rea­son. Good find Daniel.

And now the male answer to Mrs. Miller, the immor­tal Tiny Tim and his ver­sion of Nowhere Man.

Here is Ger­many’s answer to Wing.  It is Klaus Bey­er’s remake of Back in the U.S.S.R.

This is from “Ban­da Plás­ti­ca de Tepetlix­pa.” Accord­ing to leg­end, John and Paul went to Mex­i­co, to a town called Tepetlix­pa, where peo­ple received them as dis­tin­guished guests. Local brass bands start­ed play­ing the Bea­t­les’ music and moved the singer-song­writer duo to tears. Some time lat­er, the Tepetlix­pa band record­ed Adios a Los Bea­t­les (Good­bye to the Bea­t­les), a 10-song trib­ute to the genius­es from Liv­er­pool. Jaime Orte­ga has more back­sto­ry in the com­ments sec­tion below.

@Brian_M_Cassidy asks: Is this what you’re look­ing for? Indeed it is. The Red Navy Singers, Dancers & Musi­cians sings Let It Be, dur­ing the final days of the Sovi­et Union.

We would­n’t want to leave France out. Here, Les com­pagnons de la chan­son sing Le Sous-Marin Vert. Thanks Pierre.

And final­ly pulling up the rear, The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Male Voice Choir sing When I’m Six­ty Four. H/T Olidez

On March 19, 1965, the Bill Evans Trio stopped by the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, the now-leg­endary pro­gram host­ed by the British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The combo–which fea­tured Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums–played two sets, includ­ing most of the songs from their just-com­plet­ed album, Trio ’65. The two 35-minute pro­grams (shown con­sec­u­tive­ly in the video above) take us back in time to see and hear one of the most bril­liant and influ­en­tial jazz pianists of all time, at work in a tight­ly inte­grat­ed trio.

Set One:

1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
2. “Elsa,” by Earl Zin­dars
3. “Sum­mer­time,” by George Gersh­win
4. “Come Rain or Come Shine,” by Harold Arlen
5. “My Fool­ish Heart,” by Vic­tor Young
6. “Re: Per­son I Knew,” by Bill Evans
7. “Israel,” by John­ny Carisi
8. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Set Two:

1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
2. “How My Heart Sings,” by Earl Zin­dars
3. “Nardis,” by Miles Davis
4. “Who Can I Turn To?” by Antho­ny New­ley and Leslie Bricusse
5. “Some­day My Prince Will Come,” by Frank Churchill
6. “How Deep is the Ocean?” by Bill Evans
7. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz

Thelo­nious Monk, Bill Evans and More on the Clas­sic Jazz 625 Show

The Fla­men­co gui­tar grew up in Andalu­sia, the major province in south­ern Spain, where it became inte­gral to the cul­ture dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry. The mod­ern fla­men­co gui­tar (a first cousin of the mod­ern clas­si­cal gui­tar) is typ­i­cal­ly made with two of three woods — spruce on the top, and cypress or sycamore on the back and sides. When put in the hands of the right luthi­er, the gui­tar can become a thing of beau­ty. Case in point: This art­ful video by Greek film­mak­er Dim­itris Ladopou­los brings you inside the work­shop of Vasilis Lazarides, who spe­cial­izes in mak­ing high qual­i­ty fla­men­co gui­tars by hand. (Vis­it his gui­tars online here.) 299 hours of blood, sweat, tears and love go into mak­ing each fine gui­tar. But you can watch it all hap­pen in a mat­ter of three min­utes, with the music of Edsart Udo de Haes pro­vid­ing the sound­track.

If elec­tric gui­tars hap­pen to be your thing, you can also watch Fend­ers being made in 1959 and 2012.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch FLAMENCO AT 5:15, a Life-Affirm­ing, Oscar-Win­ning Doc­u­men­tary About a Fla­men­co Dance Class

Hear Metallica’s “Noth­ing Else Mat­ters” Cov­ered in Unex­pect­ed Styles: Gre­go­ri­an Choir, Cel­lo Ensem­ble, Finnish Blue­grass, Jazz Vocal & More

On Mon­day, we post­ed the Artist Series, short pro­files of var­i­ous aes­thet­i­cal­ly-ori­ent­ed cre­ators by the late Hill­man Cur­tis. Today, please enjoy what feels like the jew­el in the Artist Series’ crown, despite not offi­cial­ly being part of it: Cur­tis’ pro­mo­tion­al doc­u­men­tary on Bri­an Eno and David Byrne and their col­lab­o­ra­tion on 2008’s Every­thing That Hap­pens Hap­pen Will Hap­pen Today.

Cur­tis inter­views Eno and Byrne in their sep­a­rate work­spaces, cap­tures their con­ver­sa­tions about parts of their songs, and even — pre­sum­ably in keep­ing with the album’s do-it-your­self pro­mo­tion­al spir­it — lets them pho­to­graph one anoth­er. He also shows them doing what they do best when not cre­at­ing: cycling, of course, in Byrne’s case, and look­ing pen­sive­ly through win­dows in Eno’s.

In none of these nine min­utes do Byrne or Eno per­form any­thing. Cur­tis does­n’t need them to; he taps instead into the com­bi­na­tion of artic­u­la­cy, clar­i­ty, and idio­syn­crasy that has earned them near­ly forty years of sta­tus as cere­bral pop­u­lar music icons. Just as the ear­ly eight­ies’ nascent sam­pling tech­nol­o­gy gave Byrne and Eno a new frame­work with which to think about music when they record­ed My Life in the Bush of Ghosts togeth­er, the abil­i­ty to send sounds over the inter­net and exten­sive­ly mod­i­fy absolute­ly any record­ing after the fact shaped the con­struc­tion of Every­thing That Hap­pens Will Hap­pen Today.

The result­ing pro­duc­tion legit­i­mate­ly earns the crit­i­cal­ly abused adjec­tive “dream­like” — have a lis­ten to the track “I Feel My Stuff” above — and the feel of Cur­tis’ video aligns with the feel of the album, using unblink­ing gazes and drift­ing track­ing shots that would­n’t feel out of place in an Apichat­pong Weerasethakul film. If you still want to see these guys actu­al­ly play some­thing, watch Ride, Rise, Roar (trail­er here, clip below), Cur­tis’ con­cert film of the Songs of David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Tour.

Relat­ed con­tent

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Art As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

Sketch­es of Artists by the Late New Media Design­er Hill­man Cur­tis

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.