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RELIEF! Peter Gabriel finally gets his back scratched

By Paul Sinclair

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Peter Gabriel / And I'll Scratch Yours
The cover of Peter Gabriel’s “And I’ll Scratch Yours”

Three and a half years after his Scratch My Back covers album, Peter Gabriel finally gets the favour returned. And I’ll Scratch Yours – released on 23 September –  features all but two of the artists, whose songs Gabriel covered originally, performing songs by Peter. Amongst the 12 tracks, Arcade Fire tackle Games Without Frontiers, Elbow try their hand at the evocative Mercy Street from So and Paul Simon performs Biko.

The new record is available on it’s own, or as a double-pack with the original Scratch My Back album.

Single album

Double pack

And I’ll Scratch Yours track listing:

  • I Don’t Remember / David Byrne
  • Come Talk to Me / Bon Iver
  • Blood of Eden / Regina Spektor
  • Not One of Us / Stephin Merritt
  • Shock the Monkey / Joseph Arthur
  • Big Time / Randy Newman
  • Games Without Frontiers / Arcade Fire
  • Mercy Street / Elbow
  • Mother of Violence / Brian Eno
  • Don’t Give Up / Feist feat. Timber Timbre
  • Solsbury Hill / Lou Reed
  • Biko / Paul Simon
Peter Gabriel / Scratch My Back / And I'll Scratch Yours 2CD
Different artwork for the double CD with both albums

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14 Comments

14 thoughts on “RELIEF! Peter Gabriel finally gets his back scratched”

  3. Shan’t be bothering with this; I’m sick of funding PG’s pension fund, and I’ve really got no interest in covers of his material by other artists.

    I note it’s all gone rather quiet on the Athens BD front – no nice letter of response like SDE got to the So deluxe set! Perhaps PG has decided that if he doesn’t say anything at all, he won’t be found to have been lying 6 months later…

  4. Funnily enough Passion and Scratch My Back are my two most listenened PG album. :-) I’m really happy to see I’ll Scratch Yours released at last, I really thought it had been abandonned.

    The Paul Simon’s version of Biko is wonderful (I may even perfer it to the original), Bon Iver’s take on Come Talk To Me is superb too. I’m really looking forward to hear what Arcade Fire and Regina Specktor did too.

    Sad that Neil Young hasn’t reprocicated, especially since he was recording with Daniel Lanois not long ago. Bowie would have been fun too.

  5. I have all the ones already released as B-sides, and Elbow and David Byrne are the only two worth the effort. They were all available in iTunes in 2010/11.
    The less said about Lou Reed, the better. Truly horrendous.

    I’ll buy it, like the completist schmuck I am, but I doubt I’ll ever play it start to finish. Yet another gap-plugger until some original material sees the light of day….if ever.

  6. Newman’s version of “Big Time” would play over the P.A. system before Gabriel took the stage on last year’s Back to Front tour. It sounded great.

  7. Really disliked Gabriel’s cover album, I found it impossible to enjoy in any regard. Still, this might be better. The three I’m most interested in are the David Byrne (who always does great covers), Randy Newman, and Brian Eno – who should slay Mother of Violence. Of the rest – Reed doing Sulsbury Hill? Ominous. I’m not ashamed to say I have no idea who Bon Iver, Regina Spektor, Stephin Merritt, Joseph Arthur, and Feist feat. Timber Timbre are. But with the exception of Don’t Give Up, it’s a decent list of Gabriel songs at least.

    1. I agree. Along with “Passion,” that’s the only PG album I’ve ever traded in. I’ve loved Peter since the Genesis days, but “Scratch” was just too morose. Every song sounded like a dirge to me.

  9. So Radiohead and Neil Young will not be scratching Peter’s back. And Brian Eno is pinch-hitting (pinch-scratching?) for David Bowie…

  10. I would have loved it if Paul Simon recorded a different song, since his version of Biko was already the “virtual b-side” on the digital single of Peter Gabriel doing The Boy In The Bubble. Oh well. I imagine the same is true of the other singles released at the time, but I only paid attention to the Paul Simon one.

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