War Child‘s latest covers compilation is shaping up to be the second best charity album of the year. Which is not that impressive since it’s only January, but Heroes is still something to be excited about. Over the last few weeks we’ve highlighted contributions from Lily Allen, TV On The Radio, and Hot Chip. Now you can hear a faithful rendition of U2′s heroin addict piano ballad “Running To Stand Still,” courtesy of Merc Prize winners Elbow.
According to the charity’s site, Elbow were nominated for the job by U2 themselves, who also selected the song. From the 1999 Joshua Tree edition of the Classic Albums TV series, here’s Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, the Edge, and Bono revisiting the original demo of “Running To Stand Still”:
Great doc, you should watch the whole thing.
War Child: Heroes is out 2/16 on Parlophone.
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Leave it to Elbow to do such a classy cover. Nice.
Pretty nice. Both the war child and dark was the night comps are total winners. I want them!
great song. great band. great cover.
love love loved seldom seen kid as well.
Nicely done. This is probably one of my favorite U2 songs ever. And Garvey’s voice sounds perfectly at home in this wonderful rendition.
This certainly is a beautiful cover. One of my all-time favorite U2 tracks as well.
What a fantastic cover. One of my top U2 songs (probably that and “Bad,” ironically another heroin song), and this really rekindled my love for it. I’ll have to check the album out when it’s released.
Gotta love Garvey and Co. Now if only Bono could convince them to do the theme song for the next bond flick…
i’ve played it 40 times so far
wow. no one could have covered this better. maybe lanois. i want to download this.
This is great…it only goes to prove that U2 is at their most powerful when they practice little sublety. Unlike that ‘get yer boots on’ swill their hawking at the moment.
my only detracting comment here is that Garvey could’ve easily taken this one on in a higher key (instead of sticking with the original), which would have given it a bit more juice. They aced it, though… once that middle breakdown comes in here, it’s magic… but I already knew I would love this song, I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard from this band.
What I REALLY like here is that I’ve finally read an entire Stereogum post that’s been up more than ten minutes and doesn’t have any negative comments! Maybe everyone’s just scared to dis on a Mercury Prize winner, but the word “douchebag” is amazingly absent here! Well done, hipsternet citizens!
Elbow are amazing! Great cover.