Colin Hay, the songwriter/lead vocalist/guitarist for Australian chart toppers Men at Work, has released a covers album. I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself, named for the 1964 U.K. hit for Dusty Springfield, features songs that he heard as a young man while working at his parents’ record shop in his native Scotland. The album arrived on CD and “random color vinyl” on August 6, 2021, via Compass Records.
While at home during quarantine in early 2021, he read that Gerry Marsden had died and found himself strumming the Gerry and the Pacemakers’ Merseybeat hit, “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying.”
Writes Hay in the liner notes for the album: “I wasn’t particularly planning a covers album. [But when] Gerry Marsden died, I was sitting around in the basement, playing major 7th chords, and I started singing “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” to myself. So I switched on the machines with the pretty lights and recorded it. Just vocals and guitar. I sent it to my best man, Chad Fischer, and said, ‘See what you can do with this’ and he did.”
“He said, ‘Send me another’. And so it went, until we had ten.”
Listen to the title track, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Besides the Gerry and the Pacemakers hit, the collection also includes Hay’s versions of favorites from the Kinks (“Waterloo Sunset”), Faces (“Ooh La La”), and Blind Faith (“Can’t Find My Way Home”), among them.
Track Listing
1. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
2. Waterloo Sunset (Ray Davies)
3. Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb)
4. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
5. Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying (Gerard Marsden/Fred Marsden, Les Chadwick, Leo Mcguire)
6. Ooh La La (Ronnie Lane/Ron Wood)
7. Driving With The Brakes On (Justin Currie)
8. Across the Universe (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
9. Can’t Find My Way Home (Stevie Winwood)
10. Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
Watch Hay perform a Men at Work favorite
Hay turned 68 on June 29.
Colin Hay 2021 Tour (Tickets are available here)
Aug 07 – Boarding House Park – Lowell, MA
Aug 08 – Point of the Bluff Vineyards – Hammondsport, NY
Aug 10 – Ocean City Music Pier – Ocean City, NJ
Aug 11 – Wind Creek Steel Stage at PNC Plaza – Bethlehem, PA
Aug 13 – Ridgefield Playhouse – Ridgefield, CT
Aug 14 – City Winery – New York, NY
Aug 15 – City Winery – New York, NY
Aug 17 – Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
Aug 18 – Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
Aug 19 – Mcglohan Theater – Charlotte, NC
Aug 20 – City Winery – Atlanta, GA
Aug 21 – The Caverns – Pelham, TN
Aug 22 – Charleston, WV – Culture Center Theater
Aug 25 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
Aug 26 – Frederik Meijer Gardens – Grand Rapids, MI
Aug 28 – Big Top Chautauqua – Washburn, WI
Aug 29 – Park West – Chicago, IL
Aug 31 – Omaha, NE – Barnato
Sep 01 – Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities – Arvada, CO
Sep 02 – Red Butte Garden – Salt Lake City, UT
Sep 11 – BeachLife Festival 2021 – Redondo Beach, CA
More shows, including his dates with Ringo Starr and the All-Starr Band, are scheduled for 2022.
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