Birds, The Byrds, The Beatles & Hitchcock

Dang!  Spaced out the logo...

Okay so these aren't your usual 6 degrees sort of links.  They're a little oblique and undulating. The KatBox contribution, at Beth's invitation, to The Six Degrees of the GMMP 

Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians' 1991 Perspex Island, "Birds in Perspex" for the pretty Byrds-like guitar bits (I almost wanted to invoke "Turn, Turn, Turn" but it sounded stodgy and dated after all these years) played by Robyn himself with Andy Metcalf (an original Soft Boy) on acoustic - Peter Buck was (is?) an Egyptian, but he doesn't play on this track.

So, birds?  Pretty guitar bits?  Credited to Lennon & McCartney, "And Your Bird Can Sing", from Revolver, 1966 by the Fab Four was really John's songwriting credit alone and of course he sings the lead.  I love the interplay of George's and John's guitars - sweet little riff - more than you really wanted to know about it here.  I could have flipped these two songs -it's Robyn who sometimes channels Lennon, not the other way around - but I liked the way they sounded in the playlist with Robyn's first.

Cascading guitar runs and this time it IS Peter Buck.   R.E.M.'s "Pretty Persuasion" from 1984's Reckoning - right in the thick of their jangle pop period - love that chiming Rickenbacker and Bill Berry's driving, urgent beat - this sounds as if it could get away from them - but it doesn't quite and that just makes me love this song all the more.  Minor key changes, obscure lyrics, this is possibly my favorite single R.E.M. song (even if New Adventures in High Fi is still my favorite album). 

It's on 2004's In Rock, The Minus 5 covering "The Little Black Egg", The Nightcrawlers' mid 60's hit - I sure don't remember them, but then I was 6 in the mid 60's.   Links?  Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin - one official and two 'additional musician' members of R.E.M. who moonlight as The Venus 3 to back Robyn Hitchcock.  Musical links? Another great jangly guitar pop song, but this time it's Scott and former Model Rocket, current Tripwire lead singer John Ramberg playing the riffs.  I wish I had a pony for every time I've heard them sing this live.  Actually.  No. I don't.  But I still love this song.

More Lennon, but I was really thinking of Hunt Sales' drum intro and machine gun outro of Tin Machine's 1988 cover of his "Working Class Hero" on their eponymous first album.  The song as John Lennon sang it is quietly outraged, powerful.  This version gives it (bigger) balls and Bowie. 

More driving drums (Bill Rieflin this time) and a Beatle-esque Robyn sounding very Lennon (especially the line "...that'll do nicely, step this way sir, after you") "The Authority Box" from Ole Tarantula, 2006, Robyn Hitchcock and afore-mentioned Venus 3.  The song also contains one of the strangest/best lines in rock "F*ck me baby, I'm a trolleybus!" This is contemporary Hitchcock at its most wry and fun, but it wouldn't sound out of place on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.