My golden rule with Beatles covers is that the artist behind it has to put their own spin on it. There is entirely no point doing a direct cover of a Beatles song, because there’s a band who did it better than you. They were called the Beatles.
Acquiring the rights to use actual Beatles music in films is apparently incredibly hard, I learnt recently, so most films that want a Beatles song resort to cover versions. This marvellous version of With a Little Help From My Friends comes from the otherwise saccharine film Across the Universe. Happily, it doesn’t break my rule, and it’s cracking to boot: a kind of punkish, British, ‘don’t take no damn guff’ version. Yeah, I know the Beatles were British, but this is a different kind of British??? Also, this version incorporates Joe Cocker’s rather famous rendition as well, so there’s something for everyone!