The Church: The Unguarded Moment (2004)

Just as John Lennon borowed, plagiarised and stole from early black r'n'b artists for riffs and chords on songs like I Feel Fine and Revolution, so too various phases of the Beatles' work has been plundered and remade by everyone from the Merseybeats and ELO through the Jam and on to Oasis ("I'm surprised Paul McCartney hasn't sued me," said Noel Gallagher) and beyond.

Some of the borrowings are homages, some are subtle and then there was the Church's Unguarded Moment which rather neatly took the Beatles Ticket to Ride for its riff and melody.

Very clever. 

Most people know the Church's 1981 Unguarded Moment as a classic slice of paisley pop full of guitar jangle and a world-weary drone-meets-melody delivery (see the clip below).

But the Liberation label offered "heritage acts" the chance to do acoustic treatments of their great songs on their Liberation Blue imprint, and there were any number of Australian and New Zealand artists happy to take up the opportunity, among them Dragon, Hammond Gamble, James Reyne, Diesel . . .

And the Church whose album El Momento Descuidado stripped back versions of Under the Milky Way, Invisible, Sealine . . .

And this slow and more mature treatment of Unguarded Moment.

(There is a 2012 interview with the Church's Steve Kilbey here.) 

You can hear the Church's original Unguarded Moment on Spotify here, then play the Beatles' Ticket to Ride here. 

Ta-da! 

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