For the endless wealth of musical options at our fingertips, one song I always return to as a bit of cozy aural comfort food is The Radio Dept.’s cover of The Go-Betweens single “Bachelor Kisses”, originally taken from their 1984 album Spring Hill Fair.
Instrumentally, it’s Radio Dept by the numbers – warm synth pads, simple skittering drums, skeletal guitar lines – but when Johan Duncanson wraps his vocals around Grant McLennan’s lyrics, it’s magic and an absolute high point of the band’s discography.
Released as an MP3 – when that was something you could do – in 2008, it also got a physical release as a limited edition CDr, and looking at the Discogs entry, I am bewildered by the listed b-side. “Ebony and Ivory”? A Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson cover? That seems too unlikely, and yet.. of course, the song doesn’t seem to exist anywhere on the internet. So if you’re one of the approximately 100 people who have a copy, let me know??