The band pays homage to the original record whilst putting a spin on things that makes their recording a salient listen.
“Déjà Vu” is exactly what you might be feeling when you listen to British americana trio The Wandering Hearts’ latest release, since it’s actually their take on the classic 1970 album by the venerable Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. To take on such an album with such a legacy seems hugely daunting, but with the band being such big fans of the recording, vocalist Tara Wilcox said that once they started playing around with the songs in rehearsals “It clicked”, and that lying down studio versions of the tracks “felt like something [they] had to do”.
If you’re going to take on Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, then your harmonies better be tighter than tight, but thankfully, from the opening strains of ‘Carry On’, The Wandering Hearts prove that they are more than equipped to match that challenge. Not only are they crisp and exact, but there is the beautiful added component of getting to hear female vocals on songs that were originally all male. To hear Wilcox sing “Almost cut my hair / It happened just the other day / It’s gettin’ kinda long / I coulda said it wasn’t in my way / But I didn’t and I wonder why / I feel like letting my freak flag fly” on ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ expresses a different kind of rebellion compared with the voice of David Crosby on the original.
‘Teach Your Children’ stays faithful to the gentle folk of the original, but the theme of how to guide young people in the world for them to help build a better society holds a new resonance in 2025. Chess Whiffin, the band’s second female vocalist, takes lead on ‘Helpless’; a song written by Neil Young about contracting polio at the age of five, Whiffin’s fresh, sweet voice is remarkably comparable to Young’s on the original recording and she makes the lyrics, like snapshots, somehow form a whole picture. ‘Woodstock’ – written by Joni Mitchell – wisely keeps the rocking, psychedelic tone of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s recording, while ‘Our House’ is stripped right back, Wilcox and Whiffin sharing vocal duties where Graham Nash did in the original, gentle acoustic guitar accompanying.
‘4 + 20’, written by Stephen Stills, feels every bit as relevant as it ever was as it speaks of a poor man who started and ended his life with nothing – both financially and emotionally: “Night after sleepless night / I walk the floor and I want to know / Why am I so alone? / Where is my woman? Can I bring her home?” Be it in 1970 or 2025, there still isn’t much more of a powerful message to end on than ‘Everybody I Love You’, an expression of pure love and acceptance being the way forward.
Cover albums walk a fine line between overdoing the reinvention of the songs and being a pointless rehash of the already existing recordings, but thankfully, The Wandering Hearts are very much aware of this. “With a cover, you either have to do something so different that it becomes something new, or because you love it so much that you have to pay tribute,” reflected AJ Dean, concluding that: “I think our version of “Déjà Vu” is something in between.” While it’s highly unlikely anyone is going to think of this as a replacement for the original, it does sit alongside it as a fun spin on it, some 55 years later, respectful enough not to offend purists, but with enough newness to capture younger ears, and that makes it far from pointless.
