Watch the Flaming Lips and Miley Cyrus Deliver Trippy Beatles Cover on ‘Conan’
The Flaming Lips brought their psychedelic spectacle to Conan on Thursday night, teaming with Miley Cyrus for a mind-altering cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band epic “A Day in the Life.” Check out the trippy results above.
During the song’s first half, Cyrus is obscured as she scurries around under Coyne’s massive silver cape. She emerges, wearing a silver wig, to sing lead during an electro-pop rendering of Paul McCartney’s poppy middle section, sometimes resting her head on Coyne’s chest.
The cover is included on the Lips’ recently released collaborative, track-for-track Sgt. Pepper’s remake, With a Little Help From My Fwends. In addition to “A Day in the Life,” Cyrus also added her voice to “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”; other fwends include Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, Tegan & Sara, My Morning Jacket and J. Mascis.
As bonkers as the Conan performance might be, it’s trumped by the band’s recent Halloween appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where they tackled “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” with assistance from Grace Potter and Morgan Delt. During that two-song romp, Coyne and Delt teamed up to create one Wizard of Oz-themed rainbow costume, while Potter dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West.
“If you’re a musician, playing Beatles stuff is great because some of it is really simple,” Flaming Lips member Steven Drozd explained in a recent behind-the-scenes Fwendsvideo. “And it is rewarding quickly because it’s so easy to play. But some of it is really complicated and it surprises you.”