Earlier this year I found myself at a Weezer concert. So what if the band played “Beverly Hills”? Opening with “Tired of Sex,” though expected, was enough to decimate my contained posture to a smouldering heap of fist-pumping, lyric shouting and, not to forget, highly embarrassing fandom. Really great rock songs don’t demand careful analysis or criticism, but hit at the epicentre of gratification. Tegan and Sara do instant gratification: clever, insular pop songs that are mildly enjoyable and completely disposable. This is why, as the sisters supported the holy =w=, I was more interested in stealing glances at cute girls in expensive tour shirts.

So when I first heard this song, the fact that it’s a cover never occurred to me until a couple of days later when an acquaintance righteously informed me that it was, indeed, a Tegan and Sara cover. And credit must be given to the girls for writing a pop hook to colour Carl Newman jealous, but Jack and Meg infuse their version with such unbridled, nervous intensity as to render the original version as nothing more than an embryonic precursor. Where the original seemed soulless, a jumpy vocal turn by Jack White, oddly reminiscent here of a young David Byrne, is perfectly complemented by his trebly, stop-start guitar stabs and a signature turn by Meg to hand the tune an iconic feel. I haven’t heard such a blatantly fun joyride from the Stripes since “Fell In Love With A Girl”, and the success of the Stripes’ cover, easily the best of their career (Ed.: "Jolene"?), shows that it’s all in the delivery. It might end abruptly, and be a short-lived sugar high, but it’s the type of cover that reminds one of the seismic thrills of a great pop song when it’s in the right hands.

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