Gotta promise not to let me down and hurt you.

June 22, 2020 6:46 AM

Rick Astley performs an incredible cover of Everlong by the Foo Fighters.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock (18 comments total)

When I was discovering, um, the pleasures of altered states in my early years of undergrad, a friend-of-a-friend, a couple years younger, was often around with her acoustic guitar. She generously entertained my many requests for covers, which was always the same song, Everlong, sometimes several times in a row. I went to her all-ages shows in the city, and every time she saw me in the audience, she'd play Everlong. And now that her career has exploded, I just wanna hear Basia Bulat release a cover of Everlong.
posted by avocet at 6:58 AM on June 22, 2020 [13 favorites]

I love a good Rickgrohl.
posted by emelenjr at 6:59 AM on June 22, 2020 [61 favorites]

That was awesome! Now get him to do some Robert Palmer covers!
posted by valkane at 7:00 AM on June 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm just walking into this but Rick Astley has aged pretty damn well, eh? I mean, sheesh, I don't say this often about menfolk but him, Sean Connery, and Idris Elba, whew...
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:01 AM on June 22, 2020 [5 favorites]

Everlong is one of my favorite songs of all time. I can't even begin to express how much this song affected me during my musical awakening as a teen. I was helping a few friends setup a null modem to play Doom 2 and one of them said "you gotta listen to this" and put on The Color and the Shape and that was all she wrote.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:05 AM on June 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you can find it, the acoustic version that Dave Grohl did on The Howard Stern Show (which he comments afterward is the first time he ever publically performed it acoustically) is totally mind-blowing.
posted by valkane at 7:14 AM on June 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

Valkane, you mean this?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:19 AM on June 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

And also, because why not: Foo Fighters With Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up - London O2 Arena 19 September 2017
posted by piyushnz at 7:30 AM on June 22, 2020 [5 favorites]

Thanks for posting this, I love Everlong and this is such a great unexpected cover! It's definitely a straightforward cover but sometimes that's all you need.
posted by capricorn at 8:12 AM on June 22, 2020

This is lovely. The only problem is the amount of twitchy emotional energy I expend just to bring myself to click on anything related to Astley.
posted by Mchelly at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2020

I'm gonna be honest. I keep seeing this popping up and I find it pretty meat and potatoes, especially for a guy with such a good voice. This is the same cover everyone has been doing since David Grohl did it on Howard Stern. And pretty much as sloppy as the next fellow's. This isn't Prince's Foo Fighter cover. It's just an aging pop-star with meme cred killing time during covid.
posted by es_de_bah at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

Girl it's 2020 let people enjoy things
posted by Automocar at 9:23 AM on June 22, 2020 [19 favorites]

I have always loved Rick Astley. Here he is "having a sing-song" with Choir Choir Choir in Canada a few years ago.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:47 AM on June 22, 2020

I happily refuse!
but i respect your opinion!
posted by es_de_bah at 12:35 PM on June 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

In other Rick Astley news, he posted an old tour photo up on reddit this weekend, only to have a user rickroll the man himself. I'm not sure if this is a sign of the apocalypse or a sign that we're over the hump for 2020.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:40 PM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]

I don't know who's writing 2020, but I'm glad they're no longer following the book.
posted by tommasz at 2:07 PM on June 22, 2020

Fuck, he must have a really badly aged picture in an attic somewhere, eh?
posted by MartinWisse at 5:48 AM on June 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

I uh, had a hard time with this. I think he's a charming dude and am glad is rolling with his weird current relevancy but he fxed that sucka like he was that guy in the corner of the dark food & drink establishment you went to for not-music. Four people clap. Awkward silence, shuffling noises. :[ I really wanted him to really rock it because I really want this bromance between them to flourish. Maybe a more earnest "Learning to Fly?"
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:41 AM on June 23, 2020