Contributions and Collaborations
The band made an acoustic cover of Destiny's Child's "Independent Women", recorded exclusively for a BBC Radio 1 session. It turned into a popular web animation by Rathergood.com's Joel Veitch. The animation features a band of flat-capped northern kittens "performing" the song. In the same year, their song "Fallen Angel" appeared in the film 9 Songs.
In 2002, Elbow recorded a cover of "Something in the Air" (3.31) for the War Child compilation "1 Love".
Elbow contributed a song "Snowball" (5.00) to the War Child compilation Help!: A Day in the Life, in September, 2005. Already recorded for the "Cast of Thousands" record, they didn't think it fit the album and left it off. The song and lyrics are highly political, suiting the compilation. Another cover "Working Class Hero" (5.03) was recorded as part of a tribute album "Lennon: Covered Vol. 1" given away with Q Magazine, in 2005. A The The cover of "August and September" (4.55) was recorded as part of a tribute album "Q Covered: Best of 86/06" in 2006.
In 2009, Elbow contributed to War Child's Heroes album, covering U2's "Running to Stand Still". Garvey said: "When the band first met each other aged 17, Mark and Craig's father Gareth would lend us his Volvo to get our gear around. It seemed that for a year and a half all that we listened to in that car was Rattle and Hum. I remember the excitement every time a U2 album was released, we just loved them. The first song we ever covered together before we had enough of our own songs to do a performance was 'Running To Stand Still'. For 'Heroes' we've changed the order of things but kept every musical theme in the song. We wrote it with the members of U2 in mind. War Child do exactly what it says on the tin. These kids shouldn't be in such circumstances in the first place, but they are, so thank god someone's doing something about it."
In November 2009 Britain's long running arts series The South Bank Show aired a 60 minute documentary about Elbow on ITV 1. Combining live footage of Elbow's September 2009 live performance at Manchester Evening News Arena with an in depth interview between Guy Garvey and The South Bank Show presenter Melvyn Bragg, the first half of the documentary focused on Elbow's early career and attempts to get a record deal. The second half of the documentary featured elucidations of songs on Asleep in the Back, Leaders of the Free World and The Seldom Seen Kid. The documentary also contained sequences of Craig Potter demonstrating Elbow's unusual recording techniques at Blueprint Studios, Mark Potter driving around Elbow's old neighbourhood in Bury, Greater Manchester, Peter Turner showing cameras around Manchester's Northern Quarter, where the band played their first gigs as Elbow, and sequences of Guy Garvey reading through old and new lyric books. Some of the lyrics Garvey read out in these sequences became the lyrics to "Jesus Was a Rochdale Girl" and "High Ideals" on Elbow's 2011 album Build a Rocket Boys!
In 2010, Peter Gabriel released a version of Elbow's song "Mirrorball" on his album Scratch My Back. In return, Elbow have recorded a version of Gabriel's song "Mercy Street" from his 1986 album So, which is due to appear on the album of Gabriel cover versions I'll Scratch Yours.
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