Music
05 Apr 18

Bob Dylan lends his voice to LGBT wedding compilation

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan is one of six acts featuring in a new EP that showcases reimagined versions of traditional wedding songs for same-sex partners. Dylan has rerecorded the 1929 American classic of ‘She’s Funny That Way’ as ‘He’s Funny That Way’.

‘Universal Love’ was funded by MGM Resorts International and the songs included are intended to be used as first dance songs at weddings. According to Jim Murren, CEO of MGM in Las Vegas, same sex weddings account for somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of ceremonies held at MGM hotels.

The six track EP, due to be released April 6, also features Kesha, St. Vincent, Kele Okereke, Valerie June and Ben Gibbard.

St Vincent (AKA Annie Clark) turns her hand, and notable vocal prowess, to ‘And Then He Kissed Me’ by The Crystals, now renamed ‘And Then She Kissed Me’; Kesha tackles Janis Joplin’s ‘I Need a Man to Love’ changing 'man' to 'woman', and Valerie June covers Noël Coward’s ‘Mad About The Boy”, now 'Mad About The Girl'.

June told the New York Times, “It brings the song full circle to know that it was written by a gay man who meant every single word of Mad About the Boy.”

Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard flips the script on The Beatles’ ‘And I Love Her’, now ‘And I Love Him’ and Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke undertakes The Temptations’ iconic track ‘My Girl’, with flipped pronouns.

Give the EP a listen below: