When Destiny's Child and their entourage first created Independent Women (Part 1, to give it it's full title), it's doubtful flat cap wearing kittens playing xylophones were high in their thoughts. The original track is a celebration of third-wave feminism, sex positivity and financial independence in abundance. The track says as much in 3 and a half minutes as Carrie Bradshaw does in 6 seasons and two movies. It was therefore a very brave choice of track for a group of men approaching thirty from a working class town in Lancashire to attempt.
Elbow, upon entering the Radio 1 Live Lounge to cover the track in 2002, probably weren't thinking of kittens in flat caps either, but that's what their cover is now best known for, thanks to Joel Veitch of Rathergood.com. What they did create in the studio that day is, like Destiny's Child, a celebration of who they are, where they are from, and what they've achieved. The skiffle beat, the overly pronounced northern accent, the accordion. This is a group of guys in a Bury pub, not a track from a Hollywood movie. It's truncated lyrics overtly remove the message of the original but having slogged away for several years, an album laying unreleased due to being dropped by Island records, there must have been a sense of achievement from the band. They'd finally seen debut Asleep At The Back released, Mercury nominated and critically acclaimed, and they were performing live on one of Britain's biggest radio stations.
This shouldn't be taken as an attempt to compare the need for equality to one bands hard work in reaching the status they deserve. But as the Sunday Classic Cover is all about, Elbows' re imagining captures the obvious craft at the core of the songwriting of the original track, remoulding it to show the core of the band performing. And kittens.
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