So last week I finally paid tribute to the evil empire and opened an iTunes account. I didn’t want to, because I don’t have an iPod, and I want to be able to play music on my Zen Xtra, and my car stereo accepts mp3 CDs, but those two Frank Black albums finally overwhelmed me.

My favorite track on Snake Oil is Changing of the Guard, which is a cover of Bob Dylan‘s Changing Of The Guards. I’m inherently lousy at detecting when Frank Black is playing a cover, maybe because he plays them in his own way (for instance, when I heard him do Sister Isabel in concert, I had no idea it was a Del Shannon song) so I was curious to hear the original. And because I have iTunes now, that was just $0.99 away.

You can hear the elements of a good rock song in the original, but it’s buried under a flippant arrangement. Granted, it was recorded in 1978, and maybe that… is that reggae I hear… reggae organ was cutting edge, but I think it covers up some good, driving guitar that really comes out in the Catholics version.

Mind you, it’s not the night and day change that you’d get if you listened to the original version of Handyman.