“Rather than make a traditional covers record, I thought it would be much more fun to create a new type of project in which artists communicated with each other and swapped a song for a song, i.e. you do one of mine and I’ll do one of yours, hence the title – Scratch My Back – And I’ll Scratch Yours.”

Peter Gabriel
Peter will release his ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’ album project on September 23rd 2013 through Real World. The album is the concluding part of a series of song exchanges in which he and other leading artists reinterpret each other’s songs.

‘Scratch My Back’ was originally released in 2010 and now makes its second coming, this time accompanied by ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’. Peter is delighted with how many artists signed up for the project and bearing in mind the calibre and careers of those artists whose songs he selected, it’s rather incredible that all but two songwriters were able to reciprocate. (For those uncompleted swaps, Joseph Arthur and Feist willingly entered the fray with their respective versions of Shock The Monkey and Don’t Give Up).

The reciprocating artists opted for differing approaches to Peter’s songs. A few chose to radically reinterpret the original material, in the process leaving it barely recognisable – Lou Reed’s snarling Solsbury Hill or the frighteningly futuristic version of Mother Of Violence by Brian Eno, co-writer of David Bowie’s Heroes covered by Gabriel on ‘Scratch My Back’. Other contributors include Arcade Fire (Games Without Frontiers), Elbow (Mercy Street) and Regina Spektor (Blood Of Eden).

The album is available in two versions:

Scratch My Back / And I’ll Scratch Yours – both sides of Peter’s song-swap project in one place, as was originally conceived
And I’ll Scratch Yours – a stand alone version of the covers of Peter’s work
Both versions of the album are available to pre order now from the Real World Store.