Thanks very much to David Barker for his article “Reimagining the Classics Part 1”. What I do wonder is whether the song “Since Yesterday” is such an especially vapid pop song - musically speaking. The cover version by the band Revolver reveals, I think, a depth to the song that is not so apparent in the original (by Strawberry Switchboard). The cover does this in part by more explicitly linking the sung melody of the song to the Sibelius symphony that the song quotes.

Although I prefer the cover to the original, I think that the original artists are deliberately fusing what is apparently frothy with what is quite dark and melancholy (just look at the lyric). Such an approach has its own force. Just because something risks sounding vapid doesn’t mean it is vapid.

(The Revolver cover can be found on YouTube.)