KLF, The - Justified & Ancient

I never really liked the remixes of "Justified And Ancient". The whole thing is a big joke, with Tammy Wynette on vocals. Still, epic production,; we have to admit. My favorite mix is the original "White Room" version which always sounded like a nice christmas track to my ears. "Let Them Eat Ice Cream" is an intrumental remix; their final "commercial" statement it seems...

Bill Drummond talked about recording this single in a BBC documentary about Tammy Wynette broadcast shortly after her death. Bill had always wanted to work with her because "Stand By Your Man" was one of his favourite records of all time. But when The KLF played the "Justified And Ancient" backing track for her to sing along to, she couldn't do it. It turned out that her usual way of working was that she would lead, and her backing musicians would follow her, rather than the other way round - so she had never had to stick to a strict tempo. In the end they just had Tammy sing it a cappella, and then did a lot of timestretching on the vocals to make them fit the track.

In his excellent book '45' Bill Drummond relates the story of his trip to Nashville to record Tammy Wynette's vocal for this track. He says it became rapidly apparent in the studio there that she was totally unable to sing in time with a backing track, that normally her band would play to match the (wildly fluctuating!) tempo of her vocals. Bill returned to Britain with the recordings, assuming them to be useless, but Jimmy Cauty saved the day - explaining that his new sampler would enable him to timestretch the lyrics to fit the track. The song was completed, then released and went on to reach number 2 in the UK chart.