After covering Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and Giacomo Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma,” Antony Hegarty really had no choice but to keep up with his pretentious ambitious cover song legacy. And now we have the latest chapter: “Here Comes the Sun,” the classic George Harrison-penned song from the Beatles’ Abbey Road, performed live by Antony at (you guessed it) Abbey Road Studios.
“I always found the lyric quite cryptic, you know it’s kind of coded and—especially knowing more of George Harrison’s catalog after he wrote that one—some of my favorite songs are George Harrison songs. ” Hegarty says in an interview that precedes the performance.
I’m interested always in the simple differences between the word ‘sun’, like to think of the sun in the sky, and then ‘son’, [as in] father and son. There’s a few keys in the song that make it interesting to me now, like, you know, talking about ice melting and [it] has a different resonance now. I changed a couple of the words just to make it make more sense for me. I can’t really say ‘little darling” ‘cause it seems too… [holds his tongue] but I can say ‘oh, my darling,’ so that’s more natural for me.
Hegarty cites Nina Simone’s “Here Comes the Sun” cover and Ray Charles’ (he mistakenly says Otis Redding) take on Lennon/McCartney’s “Yesterday” as the Beatles covers which informed his version. Watch it hereor below: