Angels

My love/hate song is a cover of Delbert McClinton's country/gospel classic (actually written by Frankie Miller & Jerry Lynn Williams) accompanied by the pump organ.

I love this song, mostly I think because it's got a strange ambiguity to it. You can read it in a straightforward manner, where the 'he' of the chorus is the Good Lord, sending angels so that the singer can combat the devil. But you can also read it as the devil continually sending apparent angels, which is of course much more interesting.

My friend Alan does an absolutely gobsmacking cover of this which I will try to get him to record for you guys.

Here's the Delbert version. It's schmaltzy as all hell but there is not an ounce of artifice in Delbert, which is why it's so great. I'd love to see him do a duet of this with Al Greeen.

Recorded straight onto the Zoom, which is why the vocals fade out a bit now and again when I turn my head to see what I'm playing.

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posted by unSane (3 comments total)

That's a pretty sweet pump organ there. I'm not familiar with the original (your link doesn't work, btw), but this is nice.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 1:08 AM on July 1, 2011

Sorry! Delbert.
posted by unSane at 2:33 AM on July 1, 2011

I see what you mean about the schmaltz.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:46 AM on July 1, 2011