(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Mon 2 June 2025 17:39, UK
Given the colossal legacy of The Beatles and their creative leader and sometimes terrible person, John Lennon, it’s no surprise that some of music’s biggest names have tried their hand at covering the group’s most iconic tracks.
Paul McCartney himself has often spoken about the surreal fact that Beatles songs have been officially covered more than 3,000 times, putting them among the most reinterpreted bands in history. One track that seems to pull in artists from every corner, though, is the suitably sultry Lennon-penned ‘Come Together’.
Originally released in 1969 as the opening song on Abbey Road, Lennon had written the material with the intention of supporting Timothy Leary’s political campaign for governor of California. But when Leary was imprisoned for possession of marijuana, the campaign fizzled before eventually being stubbed out, and Lennon’s song was left hanging in the smoke-filled air.
“The thing was created in the studio. It’s gobbledygook,” Lennon once said. “‘Come Together’ was an expression Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with one. But I came up with this, ‘Come Together’, which would’ve been no good to him – you couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right?”
What began as a throwaway quickly became one of the group’s definitive statements. Lennon’s genius for melody and abstraction was front and centre once again, and over time, the song became a staple for ambitious cover versions. Kate Bush, Arctic Monkeys, Soundgarden, Ike and Tina Turner and plenty of other admirers tried to put their spin on it, with varying degrees of success.
Not all attempts have been graceful, though, and one nightmarish performance stands out for all the wrong reasons.
It’s rare you can say Bruce Springsteen was part of something truly fucking awful. But throw Axl Rose into the mix, and even the Mona Lisa starts to look a bit shite. That’s precisely what happened at the 1994 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. Rose was on hand to present Elton John with an award, and at the same time, an earthquake in Los Angeles threw the entire evening into chaos.
Originally, Rod Stewart and Elton John were meant to perform ‘Come Together’ in tribute to Lennon, who was being inducted posthumously as a solo artist. But when Stewart was grounded on the West Coast, organisers needed to improvise.
They tried to rope in Springsteen first, shoving a lyric sheet in front of him repeatedly, but The Boss wanted absolutely sod all to do with it. Panicking, scraping the barrel and begging just about anybody in the room to bail them out, organisers were still left with nothing. Someone, somewhere down the line, had clearly lost the plot and suggested turning to Axl Rose, who managed to charm or bulldoze his way into convincing poor ol’ Bruce to join him on stage. From beyond the bottom of the barrel itself, a nightmare unfolded.
What followed was a painfully unrehearsed tribute to one of music’s most revered artists. Rose, clapping like a man possessed and belting his lines with no regard for timing or tone, looked like he’d been jolted by the moment. Springsteen, strumming awkwardly in the background, looked like he was wondering how he’d ended up in a Beatles karaoke catastrophe. At points, his guitar playing veered dangerously close to something out of a dub reggae bar band.
Frankly, if Lennon had been watching from the afterlife, he’d have probably faked his own death a second time just to crawl back and pull the plug on the amp. You could practically hear the ghost of George Harrison muttering, “bloody hell,” somewhere offstage. It had all the polish of a school assembly, minus the vocals. Between Rose’s interpretive flailing and Springsteen’s visible existential crisis, the whole thing felt less like a tribute and more like community service.
Thank goodness for the backing musicians holding it together. Rose didn’t appear on a stage again for six years. Says it all, really.
Related Topics
Subscribe To The Far Out Newsletter