Hear Matt Berninger Cover Morphine, Velvet Underground, Bettye Swan, & More On New Serpentine Prison Deluxe Edition

Hear Matt Berninger Cover Morphine, Velvet Underground, Bettye Swan, & More On New Serpentine Prison Deluxe Edition

Back in October, after a year of buildup, Matt Berninger of the National released his debut solo album, Serpentine Prison. As he told us in an interview last fall, Berninger initially approached producer Booker T. Jones about recording a covers album together, but the project eventually morphed into a collection of originals. They had accumulated enough covers, though, to release them in a separate capacity later on. As it turns out, that capacity is a new deluxe edition of Serpentine Prison out today.

The deluxe version tacks six new tracks onto the end of Serpentine Prison. There are four covers: the Velvet Underground’s “European Son,” Bettye Swan’s “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,” Morphine’s “In Spite Of Me,” and Eddie Floyd’s “Big Bird.” And then it ends with two more Berninger originals, both of which happen to share titles with latter-day Beatles tracks: the previously shared “Let It Be” and “The End.”

According to a statement accompanying the deluxe release, the Serpentine Prison sessions yielded 12 originals and seven covers, so Berninger potentially has three more covers banked somewhere. In the meantime, this new tracklist feels like a bounty. Stream the full deluxe edition below.

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