Under the Covers: Lake Street Dive x The Jackson Five

Welcome to Under the Covers, your weekly dose of genre-bending with your favorite WBRU artists & songs! From the genuinely good to the seriously strange, we’ve got you covered. This week, Lake Street Dive reimagine a ubiquitous Jackson Five hit. For their 2012 EP Fun Machine, Boston-based band Lake Street Dive released a cover of the Jackson Five’s Motown classic “I Want You Back.” Lake Street Dive, genre-benders in their own right whose records feature echoes of soul, jazz, and rock n’ roll, slowed down the 1969 hit in a rendition that matches the song’s mournful lyrics. Trumpet and stand-up bass take the place of the original’s peppy bassline, and Michael Jackson’s teenaged falsetto is replaced by Rachael Price’s smooth alto. Where the Jackson Five’s uptempo bop masks the story of love lost, Lake Street Dive’s version really seems to plead: “Oh baby, give me one more chance,” without losing any of the grooviness of the original. Watch Lake Street Dive perform their version on a Boston sidewalk below: