Gillian Welch :: Black Star (Radiohead Cover)

You may remember I featured Gillian Welch’s genre bending cover of Radiohead’s “Black Star” a couple of years ago while the Drunkard blog was still in it’s infancy. If you grabbed it back then, cheers, if not, this re-up is for you.

As a lover of both Radiohead’s The Bends, as well as Gillan Welch’s appalachian-styled folk musings, this cover floored me the first time I heard it. It’s marriage of Thom Yorke’s guitar laden lyrics set against Welch’s vocals, a style that seems as if it Rip-Van-Winkled out from under a 19th century Tennessee rock, works in a way you wouldn’t think it would, or could for that matter.

5 thoughts on “Gillian Welch :: Black Star (Radiohead Cover)

  1. great! not to take anything away from gillian welch, but this confirms to me that despite all the buzzing and squealing in radiohead songs, thom yorke is fundamentally a great songwriter.

  2. never listened to ms. welch, but I caught her on a great Carter Family doc on PBS the other night; then happened to reread this post — seems meant to be. a very similar situation arose with the movie Performance and a subsequent post here a day or two later, come to think of it…

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