Randomly Shuffled Songs #3

All I Need Is Some Sunshine In My Life – Yak (2017, Yala! Records, Only released as a Single)

Yak, for those in the dark, were, despite having one of the worst names in the history of rock, for a time one of the great hopes of the UK indie guitar scene. They originated from Wolverhampton and formed part of a small West Midlands scene (lazily called B-Town by cocaine addled music hacks) that gained a reputation for incendiary live shows and woozy psychedelic sounding indie rock. They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2019.

The clever people reading this will know that of course, this is a cover version, I didn’t know that until about ten minutes ago. The original was done by the band Dixie Nightingales (and we will skirt around the name here) and it is a soulful, gospel tinged thing of wonder. It was I think also performed by Samuel L Jackson in the film ‘Black Snake Moan’ but I’ve never seen it so I can’t tell you if its any good or not. The Yak version is a million miles from the original, which is not a massive surprise, they replace the soulful harmonies with guitars, feedback, creaky microphones and a little bit of what a producer would call ‘atmosphere’ and you know, it sort of works.

Here is the original should you wish to compare them.