Courtney Barnett has shared the title track to the upcoming The Velvet Underground & Nico tribute album, I’ll Be Your Mirror. The star-studded recreation of the 1967 garage-meets-art rock opus is due out on September 24th via Verve.
Barnett could have easily done any of the proto-garage rock tracks from the album, but giving her one of Lou Reed‘s most personal songs is much more fitting given the singer-songwriter’s latest artistic evolution. The acoustic guitar track takes on a bedroom quality as the lo-fi quality mingles with the minimalistic nature of the recording to form a fitting tribute to the Velvets.
“When I listen to ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and read the lyrics, I realize it’s a perfect song,” Barnett said in a statement. “I can relate to every inch of it. I just felt like I could get inside the world of this song.”
Also set to appear on I’ll Be Your Mirror are Matt Berninger, Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney, Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Kurt Vile & The Violators, St Vincent & Thomas Bartlett, Sharon Van Etten with Angel Olsen, Thurston Moore & Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Bird & Lucius, Fontaines DC, and King Princess. The cover album was announced earlier this month with Kurt Vile & The Violators’ rendition of “Run Run Run“.
I’ll Be Your Mirror is the first in an ongoing string of Velvet Underground-related projects this year. The album was originally conceived in 2017 by the late Hal Willner, a dear friend of Reed’s, and marked his final producing credit before his death in April 2020. That same year, Todd Haynes signed on to direct The Velvet Underground, the highly anticipated Apple Original film that just premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews. The documentary—Haynes’ first—is set to debut in theaters and on Apple TV+ on October 15th.
Listen to Courtney Barnett’s cover of “I’ll Be Your Mirror” from the upcoming tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico, available here for pre-order.
Courtney Barnett – “I’ll Be Your Mirror” (The Velvet Underground & Nico)
[Video: courtneybarnett]
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