Song · Live covers
All for the Best
Thom Yorke's cover of a Miracle Legion song, made to help Mark Mulcahy after his wife died.
1987
miracle legion
Mark Mulcahy wrote it for Miracle Legion, a Connecticut band on Rough Trade, and it came out on their first full-length album, Surprise Surprise Surprise, in 1987. Mulcahy went on to lead Polaris.
2009
ciao my shining star
Mulcahy's wife, Melissa, died suddenly in September 2008, leaving him with their three-year-old twin daughters. A group of musicians made Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, with all the money going to him, and Thom Yorke's version opens it, ahead of the National, Michael Stipe and Dinosaur Jr.
Yorke's arrangement is thin, stuttering electronics until an out-of-tune guitar breaks in. He plays everything, and Nigel Godrich produced it. His brother Andy Yorke, of the Unbelievable Truth, sings the backing vocals, the first time the two had been on a song together. It came out on a seven-inch of 2,000 copies on the Mezzotint label, and Rolling Stone premiered Melinda Tupling's video for it in September 2009.
the video
Miracle Legion cover.· allbearsrulewatch on youtube →
the record(1)
on stage(2)
sources2
- The site's own catalogue note, based on Rolling Stone, American Songwriter and Stereogum.
- This site's news stories of 14 July and 18 September 2009 on the tribute album and the video, drawing on The Quietus, Spin, Uncut, Drowned in Sound and Rolling Stone, for the 1987 album, the arrangement, the credits, the seven-inch and the video.