Formerly known as Canelita Sabrosa until December 2023, the Georgia seven-man outfit Pangaea is well on its way to making that new name popular. The band’s latest single “Come Together” is a bold and inventive cover of The Beatles’ classic from the Abbey Road album. The song isn’t uncharted territory. Legendary American rockers Aerosmith famously covered the tune for the ill-fated Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club movie in the late 1970s and the track still occasionally creeps up in the Boston band’s setlists. However, Pangaea takes the tune in a wholly different direction.
Incorporating vigorous horns, percolating percussion, and a deft re-invention of Paul McCartney’s famed bass line for the original are obvious differences. The revisions don’t stop there. Pangaea’s “Come Together” unfolds in subtly different ways for the listeners. Pangaea extends the opening passages of the song, delaying the entrance of the lead vocals, and it builds anticipation for when that familiar first line arrives. They employ similar revamping throughout the entirety of the tune.
The vocals have a slightly different tilt. Pangaea does treat the singing with post-production tinkering without undercutting the cool attitude running through every line. They reflect the adjustments to the arrangement that they have made without entirely jettisoning the original architecture. It is as skillful a remodeling job as you’re likely to hear.
Joe Reda’s bass playing spruces up one of the classic bass performances from that era. Paul McCartney’s work as bassist for The Beatles inspired countless musicians to pick up the instrument, and Reda honors his ongoing legacy with an inventive touch-up of the original. He drops in several brief but effective fills that are never ostentatious. Self-indulgence is missing from this recording. Everything serves the purpose of strengthening the song.
Pangaea’s treatment of the song shows it is far from a museum piece. The best songs, regardless of genre, await their chance for resurrection that modern audiences will favor. They live on because they harbor timeless virtues. “Come Together”, in any form, recalls the songwriting brilliance of Lennon, the song’s predecessor Chuck Berry (Lennon based his writing on a Berry original entitled “You Can’t Catch Me”), and the ever-youthful defiance lurking in the heart of every great rock ‘n’ roll song.
Long may such songs live in whatever compelling permutations that musicians look to cast them in. Pangaea feels this song through and through while dispatching it with creativity and respect. Hearing this as a living entity rather than treating it like a butterfly pinned under glass is the right move. It should open new doors for the group and extend their reach far beyond the welcoming confines of the Deep South. They have built a well-deserved reputation under a prior name, and now it is time for Pangaea to shine. We can expect that this crack unit of musicians will burn bright for many years. We can even be sure, and it isn’t a big leap once you’ve heard this song, that John Lennon, wherever he may be, is smiling right now.
Claire Uebelacker