Wu-Tang Clan Cover the Beatles With Help From George Harrison's Son, John Frusciante

During an interview Friday, Wu-Tang Clan mastermind RZA let us in on a hit tip: Wu-Tang are taking on the Beatles. Due November 13th, the Clan's upcoming fifth album, 8 Diagrams, has a track RZA is currently calling "Gently Weeps." It features a sample of the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which is cool enough. But what's even cooler is the fact that Wu-Tang's cover of the song features Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante on lead guitar and Dhani Harrison, George Harrison's twenty-nine-year-old son, on acoustic. "He's the biggest Wu-Tang fan in the world," RZA says of Harrison, whom RZA called in for the session. "He knew all the kung fu shit [we reference]! That's deep! I told him I would be honored if he played his father's song." The Wu song, which RZA says is about the destructive power of heroin, features Wu-Tang rapping over the band's cover of the Beatles track. Method Man plays a smack addict, while Ghostface Killah plays a dope dealer and, in RZA's words, lays down "one of the best lyrics I've ever heard him say."

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

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