Virtually everything Yo La Tengo records, performs, and releases comes filtered through the longtime marriage of singer-guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer-vocalist Georgia Hubley. As SPIN’s Keith Harris recently noted, the Hoboken trio‘s latest LP, Fade, ends with Kaplan and Hubley singing, “Take me where it’s only us.”
The indie-for-life three-piece bring that sort of devotion and muted intimacy to their cover of the Supremes’ “Come See About Me,” performed for the A.V. Club‘s “Undercover” series. “I like the idea of stripping away all the girl-group aspects of it and just having one voice sing the song,” Kaplan says in the above video. Supported by Hubley and bassist James McNew, the 56-year-old frontman transforms Diana Ross’ flirty Motown shimmy into a self-conscious, lovesick song for the middle-aged.
