Yes, it looks like he’s having a spastic fit, and the piano player is clearly stoned, but this song ROCKS:
oh yeah! i remember when rock was *real * , not like a lot of the over-produced saccharine pop drivel that gets airplay today. we had the mac, the stones, floyd, the dead, janis, jimi. the industry needs to take its children back to school for a lesson on what’s real.
Reprefuckingzent.
Eh. This version is slightly better than my version, sung in the shower. The Box Tops’ version is far better.
+1 - no disrespect to Cocker, but the Box Tops and especially Alex Chilton are much better.
The piano player is Leon Russell, who is pretty awesome in his own right, and his eyes always look like that.
(Well, maybe it’s because he’s always stoned, I don’t know.)
Sounds a little different than the one I grew up listening to, but it’s cool to have a visual to go with it. Cocker’s version of The Letter has always been one of my favorite songs.
I have to agree. I do like how in this version he adds a lot of tension in the chorus.
I beg to differ. Somehow, despite looking like a wino with CP, which is why Leon Russell’s cane is not an affectation–the CP, not because he’s a wino, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he dips his bill now and then, and Cocker has spent his time sleeping on park benches, but it, in a reversal of expectations but fully in keeping withe the Leon Spinks method of fame, was AFTER he became famous, and despite having a voice like ice cubes in a blender, the man managed to own nearly every song he sang.
The popularity of the singer-songwriter has obscured the contributions of the song stylist, a person without a great voice but who understands that singing a song is not just a robotic MIDI recitation of the notes and words, but requires the singer to internalize the song and turn its performance into something far beyond the original. My parents’ generation had Frank Sinatra as its premier song stylist and my generation had Joe Cocker, who took “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” from a trifle that probably took Lennon and McCartney ten seconds to write to a masterpiece of blues rock. Try out his “Come Together” from Across the Universe and you will see what I mean.
Check out the drummer… reminds me of some of my earliest memories. I had a similar casual beige, Alec Chilton Sport/leisure Coat in the 80’s.
You’re all wet. 
I fail to see the reason for all this fannish lust for Alex Chilton. The Box Tops and Big Star are good, but no better than hundreds of other groups of the time.
The Box Tops version of “The Letter” was a good song. Cocker’s version is a great song.
I am on a BlackBerry so don’t want to type long - and this is a Cocker thread and he is great so no need to hijack. But suffice to say there is a lot more to Chilton IMHO…
I agree. Cocker’s version really whips the Box Tops’ version’s buttocks.
Agreed. But you know what really strikes me about that video that **Elendil’s Heir **posted? It’s the backup singers. They’re only shown for a brief period, but goddamn if it doesn’t look like they are having a fun time. Love it.
This* is my favorite version.
You think I’m kidding. But I so dig the way the pounding jungle drums at the beginning “evolve” into all the great disco cliches (which weren’t of course cliches when this pioneer was recording). And then when they come back in, pounding, during the chorus.
Nostalgia plays a big part of course; I’m more a product of the disco era than the Woodstock era. Still, Amii Stewart is one of the few disco artists I still listen to.
(Her versions of Knock on Wood and, especially, Great Balls of Fire*, are even better.)
*Links directly to a video file.
I don’t know, I always preferred the Beatles’ version of “A Little Help From My Friends.”