"Justified & Ancient"

The KLF featuring Tammy Wynette - "Justified & Ancient" (1991)

OK let's get this straight, this track is actually the Stand by the JAMs remix of "Justified & Ancient".



 The KLF were originally called The JAMs, named after the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu a group that was supposedly infiltrating the Illuminati in order to take it down from the inside. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty formed the group with the idea that they were going to infiltrate the music industry and take it down. Most of their hits, and many of their songs in general make reference to some part of this mythology.

The original did not have Tammy Wynette, and it was more of a lullaby. Much less in the way of drum beats, and sung in a sweet style. It was the last song on their debut album, 1987s (What the Fuck Is Going On). Later the duo of Cauty and Drummond recorded a track as The Timelords called "Doctorin' the Tardis". It was a number 1 hit in the U.K. and made them a lot of money. They took that money and decided to make a movie and soundtrack. That lost them a lot of money. In a last ditch effort, the took the songs recorded for that album and created a new genre: Stadium House. Dance music with crowd noise, and additional vocalists added to the mix. This proved to be a big hit for them. This was one of five top ten U.K. hits they had off of the remixes of songs from their original idea of a soundtrack album, now called White Room. in 1992 they called the whole thing off, deleted their back catalog and formed an art group with a similar concept of infiltrating and changing from within. It was called the K Foundation. A group mostly known for burning one million pounds.

The song itself is not great. Lots of tribal beats and Tammy Wynette's vocals don't really go together. They make use of a Jimmy Hendrix riff during the chorus, but they cover it pretty heavily. The rap is performed by Ricardo da Force, who rapped on most of their big hits. The choir singing might be my favorite part, but it's had to really pick a part I liked.