Regular readers with extremely good memories may recall that I have an occasional series I call Under The Covers, or variations on that theme. The first of these was back in 2019 and there have been ten in all – hardly a regular occurrence! The most recent was a mere six months ago, but I have some more in mind to share, so here we are. I have been toying with the idea of playing a set of all female vocalists, to mark my love for a whole range of female singer-songwriters, and it seemed like a plan to combine the two thoughts. I’m playing six tunes today, all of which have a female lead, though three are accompanied my male voices too – they are inescapable!

I’m starting with one of my all time favourites, in a one-off (so far) collaboration she made back in March this year. I can only find an audio-only clip for it, but unless you are in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria you should be able to play it:

Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Mountain Goats with Put The Message In The Box. The song was written by Karl Wallinger and appeared on his band World Party’s second album, Goodbye Jumbo, which was released in April 1990 in the US and May 1990 in the UK, making #36 in the UK and #73 in the US, and going Silver in the UK for 60,000 sales, one of which was mine. It is a fantastic album with a whole host of great songs – this is one of my favourites among them. This one was also released as a single, making #39 in the UK and #8 in the US Alternative Airplay chart. When I saw that MCC had covered it I just had to play it! To be fair, it is a pretty faithful cover of the original but still good to hear. To my shame I hadn’t previously heard of The Mountain Goats so I looked them up. Apparently they are an indie folk band who have been together in various lineups since 1991, and have released 24 studio albums and loads of other stuff besides. Their most recent album came out last month and they are about to tour it. Oops!

I’m on much more familiar ground with this next one, for the singer at least, if not for her version of the song:

Tina Turner released her version of Help on Private Dancer, her fifth solo album, in May 1994 – but not on the version that they had in the US. There was also an international release of the album which, of course, was the one we got here in the UK, and I played it to bits. She slowed the song down from the Beatles’ original, and I’ve always loved her soulful performance, which I think goes so well with the lyrics.

Another combination of my favourites is up next:

Someday was written by Steve Earle, and was first released in March 1986 on his debut album, Guitar Town. I bought the album back then and have loved everything he has done since. Shawn Colvin included it on her Cover Girl record, released in August 1994 and which, as its title suggests, was a selection of cover versions of songs she knew and loved. I love her music too and have all of her albums. This track was made even better for me by the harmony vocals of, yep, you guessed it, Mary Chapin Carpenter, a longtime friend of Shawn’s. The circle was rounded off in 2016 when Shawn and Steve made an album together, Colvin & Earle, and recorded a duet version of the song for it. This is the one I like best, though.

I played a song by Kirsty MacColl for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. That was one of her own, and as it went down well I thought I’d play something else by her. Those on this side of the pond may remember this:

Kirsty released her version of Days, a 1968 #12 hit for The Kinks, in May 1989 on her second album, Kite, which peaked at #34 in the UK. The track became the second single from the album in June 1989 and peaked, by an amazing coincidence, at #12 in the UK. You can’t keep a good song down! In case you were wondering, the video features Kirsty’s friend and songwriting partner Pete Glenister on guitar.

I mentioned at the outset that three of today’s tunes included male voices: I started with one, and I’m closing with the other two. This one is a song I’ve always loved and when one of my favourites recorded her version as a duet with the original artist I fell in love with it all over again:

John Waite, a British singer-songwriter, released Missing You on his second album, No Brakes, in June 1984. The album went to #10 in the US and #64 in the UK: this was taken as a single from it and was a huge hit, peaking at #1 in the US and Canada and at #9 in the UK. John re-recorded the song with Alison Krauss for her album A Hundred Miles Or More: A Collection, which came out in April 2007 and reached #19 in the US and #38 in the UK. A lovely song, and this is another lovely version of it. Tina Turner also covered it on her 1996 album Wildest Dreams.

I’m closing with one which might be a little obscure in its original version, but I think this cover will have helped raise its profile a bit:

Let The Mystery Be was written by Iris DeMent, who recorded it as the opening track for her debut album, Infamous Angel, which came out in October 1992 but only charted in Australia, where it reached #83. There is a lovely video of her playing the song on the wonderful Transatlantic Sessions tv show, which was then used as the theme song for the second series of an American tv show called The Leftovers: never heard of it, never seen it. The cover by 10,000 Maniacs was, as you can see from the video, recorded during their session for MTV, and the band was joined for this song by David Byrne of Talking Heads – he also stayed with them for two others, including a cover of Dolly’s Jolene. Their session was recorded in April 1993 and released as an album, MTV Unplugged, in October 1993, peaking at #13 in the US, #36 in Canada and #40 in the UK. The David Byrne tracks weren’t included on the album I bought at the time, but eventually surfaced on a CD re-release in 2024: the video had long since been on YouTube by then! I’m a big Natalie Merchant fan, and always love seeing her charming live performances.

That’s all for today. I hope you have enjoyed these – well, some at least, I’m not greedy! – and I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday. Until then, take care and have fun 🤩