Yes, you read that right. American actor Johnny Depp has teamed up with the king of industrial goth Marilyn Manson to record a cover of Carly Simon’s classic ‘You’re So Vain’ for Manson’s new album.
Depp and Manson are reportedly friends, Manson even accompanied Depp to the premiere of one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, but we still prefer imagine a more bizarre six degrees kind of situation that led to the collaboration. Ready?
Ok, ‘You’re So Vain’ was reportedly written about Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger, who counts Keith Richards as one of his bandmates, who Johnny Depp based his character in the Pirates films on.
Who Manson would have met at the premiere, which was at a time that Richards and Jagger were fighting, and well you can see we clearly have a huge musical conspiracy on our hands. Or maybe not.
But what we do know is that this collaboration is just the latest on a long list of bizarre collaborations lately such as those of Metallica and Lou Reed, dubstep god Skrillex with the surviving members of The Doors, Jimmy Barnes dance-crossover attempt, and Jack White with the Insane Clown Posse.
Talking to MTV about the new collaboration Manson revealed, “(We wanted to do) a cover of a song which we thought was ironic for each other… He played drums and lead guitar, and I played guitar and sang.”
“It’s a bonus track on my new record and the video will probably be us looking at each other in a mirror.”
We’ll have to wait a few more months until we get our first glimpse of the track which will appear as a bonus song on Manson’s forthcoming album Born Villain, but Manson has a pretty good record covering Top 40 songs.
Among his more memorable tracks are his versions of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),’ Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’ amongst others.
It’s also not the first time Depp’s rock credentials have gone down on record – he contributed guitar tracks to Oasis’ 1997 album Be Here Now.
In the meantime, have a listen to the surprisingly strong lead single from Born Villain below.
