“Justified & Ancient” by The KLF with Tammy Wynette

"Justified & Ancient" is the tune Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty couldn't leave alone. Its roots reach back to 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), the duo's debut, and it came round again on the KLF's 1991 album The White Room, written with Ricardo Lyte and produced by the pair themselves, with Black Steel on vocals and bass, Nick Coler on keyboards and Tony Thorpe on sampler.

Then they rebuilt it. The remake, out on 25 November 1991 with the subtitle "Stand by the JAMs", went pop-house and handed the verses to American country singer Tammy Wynette, a gloriously unlikely meeting of country and the dancefloor. It reached number two in Britain and 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the charts in 18 countries, and was the last record the KLF sold in the shops before Drummond and Cauty walked out on the music business and buried the name.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.