Miley Cyrus has taken another deep-dive into the classics, moving on from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin with a powerful cover of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You."
Cyrus shared the cover on Soundcloud Friday night, directing fans to the track with the simple tweeted instruction, "Check dis shit out." The song, which Led Zeppelin featured on their 1969 debut album, was written by folk singer Anne Bredon and covered by everyone from the Association to Vanilla Fudge. Led Zeppelin learned it from Joan Baez, who released her version of it in 1962, but Cyrus' version is clearly based on the former, with her Robert Plant-channeling howl soaring in the dynamic changes. Aside from tweaking the title to "Baby I'm Gonna Leave You," Cyrus also amps up those hard-charging transitions.
Cyrus has been giving some serious thought to the history of rock n' roll lately. In addition to joining the Flaming Lips' Beatles cover project with a recording of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," she also recently offered Australia's Sunday Night a meditation on Elvis Presley's dance moves in relation to her own. "Elvis, he wasn't wearing the outfits I was wearing but he was coming out and he was doing like the OG twerking. Like, no one wants to admit that he was twerking, he was," she said. "He was like sex. He was a symbol of sex but no one would have ever called Elvis a shit because he wasn't a girl. It's that double standard and I think I'm doing something for the double standard."
Earlier this week, Cyrus also announced plans to try her hand at Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man." While it's unclear if these covers are tied to any larger project, Cyrus' take on "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" will appear on With a Little Help From My Fwends, the Flaming Lips' track-for-track tribute to the Beatles' St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, due out on October 28th.
