Event when singers did Iggy Pop's song 'Perfect Day'???

[taliesin238]

What was the event that made many famous singers get together and do a re make of this Iggy Pops tune?? Im sure it was for a special occassion about 10, 12 years ago??

[mushroom25]

I thought it was a Lou Reed song - it's on my copy of "Transformer".

[mushroom25]

the multi-artist version was recorded in 1997 as an "ad" to showcase the BBC's diverse musical coverage on tv & radio, then released in aid of Children In Need following public interest.

[Sir Alec]

Yes, are you thinking of Perfect Day as mentioned above? It was in Trainspotting. Then the mulit version came out. There were also a couple of Iggy Pop songs in this film Lust for Life and Nightclubbing.

[andy-hughes]

Fabulous wasn't it - all these opera and 'straight' singer types warbling away about a song that's actually about heroin!

Lou must be laughing all day!

Every day!

[Cheeris]

Not every Lou Reed song was necessarily about heroin. Or other drugs or transvestites or sexual deviancy for that matter.

And even if it was, which I admit it may have been (in a certain sense) it doesn't mean that a cover version automatically is as well.

eg 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails and the cover version by Johnny Cash - very different meanings, even though the lyrics are identical apart from one word.

[Richard1966]

I am a passenger

[andy-hughes]

Er acttually Cheris - it does.

You can alter the sound of a song by interperetation, but the meaning rremains as it was written.

'Hurt' has the same meaning sung by Johnny Cash as it did by NIN - of course the interperetation is vastly different, but the emotional impact is precisely the same.

'Perfect Day' is about heroin, doesn;t matter if Lou Reed sings it, or the various worthies the BBC rolled out to sing with plums in their mouths.

The only difference is, one sounds like he knows of which he sings, the others patently don't, and sound faintly ridiculous.

[Sir Alec]

Agreed, I didn't particularly enjoy the multi version, but the bit with Shane MacGowen always made my Mum laugh, so I'll always remember her laughing when I hear it.

[welshwil]

what bit did shane macgowan sing?

[Cheeris]

andy-hughes - I would totally, totally disagree.

'Hurt' by Johnny Cash is, to me, an emotionally devastating song. 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails I couldn't care less about, when I first heard it and even after the Cash version turned me on to the song - it means nothing to me. The emotional impact and the meaning, as you put it, is totally different.

In fact, Cash didn't even think much of the song before he got involved but loved it once it was recorded, and Trent Reznor has since happily gone on record to say the song is now essentially Johnny Cash's.

Context and delivery is everything with words you know! To say the meaning of a song is unchanging and immutable is ridiculous. And to say that the BBC AND each member the assembled talent were unaware of any possible negative connotations in singing 'Perfect Day' is doubly ridiculous!! Why was it OK then? Because the meaning of the song was changed and made into something different by the way in which it was used.

[Whickerman]

Here's the song you're looking for. Mushroom gives the reason for it..

Oh, and it's definitely a Lou Reed song.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d8OfKdOFR_c

[Whickerman]

more on this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Day