Buddy Holly was one of the Beatles' biggest influences, a pioneer whose simple tunes and insane two-year hot streak inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney to start writing their own songs. So it's no shock McCartney contributed to Rave On, a giant sundae of a Holly tribute album (featuring the Black Keys, Kid Rock and others) due out June 28th. What's surprising is how awesomely batshit his performance is. Over bar-band chug-a-lug, with scruffy guitars egging him on, he yowls through "It's So Easy" like he popped some Viagra, then set his pants on fire. Things get truly odd around the three-minute mark: The music stops while he launches into a bizarro jive-rap about how he's gonna hit the town with his lady. The chorus kicks back in, then McCartney delivers an even odder rap: "By 'bout half past nine, we're gonna be down by the old juke joint, man, we're gonna be playin' them records, we're gonna be dancin', man, we're gonna have such fun." True, that.

Click to listen to Paul McCartney singing Buddy Holly's 'It's So Easy'

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”