Remembering Iggy Pop’s sultry cover of ‘Michelle’ by The Beatles
If anyone ever tries to tell you that Iggy Pop can’t sing, kindly point them in the direction of this particular sultry rendition of ‘Michelle’ by The Beatles. Featured on the former Stooges frontman’s 2012 album Après, the cover appears alongside versions of Joe Dassin’s ‘Et si tu n’existais pas’, Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘La Javanaise’ and ‘La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, making it one of the only English songs in the entire album.
Released to the consternation of punk fans the world over, Après saw Iggy engage crooner mode and offer up a stream of warm chansons and classic American singles, including Frank Sinatra’s ‘Only The Lonely’ and Fred Neil’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’. Though the album was rejected by Virgin EMI on the assumption that it wouldn’t make them any money, Après ended up being a personal favourite of none other than Bob Dylan, which is pretty surprising given the singer-songwriter once labelled ‘Michelle’ a “cop out”.
‘Michelle’ – a near pastiche of French music – was written at a time when all things Parisian were very much in vogue. Apparently, it was penned by Paul McCartney to impress girls at parties. “You could maybe pull girls there, which was the main aim of every second,” Paul said of attending a party with Lennon’s Liverpool College of Art friends. “You could get drinks, which was another aim; and you could generally put yourself about a bit. I remember sitting around there, and my recollection is of a black turtleneck sweater and sitting very enigmatically in the corner, playing this rather French tune. I used to pretend I could speak French, because everyone wanted to be like Sacha Distel.”
Many years later, Lennon and McCartney were compiling the tracklist for Rubber Soul when John turned around and asked: “‘D’you remember that French thing you used to do at Mitchell’s parties?’ I said yes,” Paul recalled. “He said, ‘Well, that’s a good tune. You should do something with that.’ We were always looking for tunes, because we were making lots of albums by then and every album you did needed fourteen songs, and then there were singles in between, so you needed a lot of material.”
The Beatles’ original was always more evocative of the Mersey than the Seine. However, in this 2012 rendition, Iggy Pop conjures up the smoky charm of Serge Gainsbourg with ease. Make sure you check it out if you haven’t already.
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