TheAgitator.com
Cover Me
Wednesday, December 10th, 2003Jim Henley’s been on a covers kick, inviting the ’sphere to submit their all-time favorites. I’ve discussed my affinity for covers here before, and listed my favorite covers of Leonard Cohen songs.
I’ll submit a few more for Jim’s list. This isn’t a “greatest” list, though. Most of the greatest covers were so good, the coverers pretty much co-opted the songs as their own. Think Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Dylans “All Along the Watchtower,” or perhaps the best example, Aretha Franklin’s cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect.”
I think my personal favorite ever is Jeff Buckley’s rendition of Cohen’s “Hallelujiah,” and to be honest, Cohen covers would probably take at least three or four slots of any top ten list I could put together.
So instead, I’ll just throw out a few that I like that you likely haven’t heard of, in hopes of turning y’all on to some new stuff.
“Better Things” — Fountains of Wayne covering The Kinks. I think I’ve mentioned this one before. It’s a really upbeat, forward-looking song, particularly for The Kinks, but especially when done by FoW. They did this song live on the first Conan O’Brien Show after 9/11, and given the song’s lyrics, it was pretty moving.
“In My Hour of Darkness” – Rolling Creekdippers covering Gram Parsons. The best song off of a really outstanding Gram Parsons tribute album. Marc Olson (of the Jayhawks) and his wive Victoria Williams do magic to Parsons’ gospel/country (and eerily prescient) ode to early death.
“Keep On Rollin’” — Sheryl Crow covering The Yardbirds — From the Boys on the Side soundtrack. Crowe’s very sexy vocals laid over an up-tempo version of the old song.
“Ol’ 55″ — Sara McLachlan covering Tom Waits — From the same album.
“Dolphins” — Chris Robinson covering Tim Buckley — You’ll have to look for this one. I saw it live a year or so ago, and managed to hunt down a track online. It’s a stripped down, accoustic version of the song. When Robinson isn’t attempting to do backflips with his vocals, he really has a beautiful voice.
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” — Luna covering Guns n’ Roses. Slowed-down, understated cover of Axl’s masterpiece. Crow does a good version of this song, too.
“Bird on a Wire” — Willie Nelson covering Leonard Cohen. Willie might have the perfect voice for this song.
“Jolene” — The White Stripes covering Dolly Parton. Just plain wow. Another that you’ll have to find on your favorite fileswapping service.
“Magnet & Steel” — Matthew Sweet and Lindsey Buckingham covering Walter Egan. Fun, live cover.
“Femme Fatale” — Teenage Fanclub covering the Velvet Underground. The more well-known REM version is good, too.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” — The Bad Plus covering Nirvana. Not exactly a cover. More of a progressive piano jazz interpretation. You should be listening to The Bad Plus.
“The Gambler” — Wyclef Jean covering Kenny Rogers. His “Wish You Were Here” is good too. Best part of this song is when Rogers himself jumps in. You have to hear Kenny Rogers sing “you gotta’ count your duckets, when you’re spinnin’ that turntable,” to believe it.
“Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai” — Jeff Buckley covering Nursat Fatah Ali Khan. There are dozens of Buckley covers to choose from, but this one’s amazing for how well he pulls off an entire song in Urdu — and he does it on a spontaneous request from the audience.
“Buckets of Rain” — Vic Chesnutt covering Bob Dylan. Chesnutt’s fragile voice carries this off nicely.
Your suggestions welcome.
Dave Edmunds doing Springsteen’s “From Small Things”…
Ditto on Buckley’s “Hallelujah” as best cover ever.
Another very good one, which I think one might have to get from a file sharing network, is Sheryl Crow and the lead singer of the Counting Crows covering Lou Reed’s “Pale Blue Eyes”.
Ditto on Buckley’s “Hallelujah” as best cover ever.
Another very good one, which I think one might have to get from a file sharing network, is Sheryl Crow and the lead singer of the Counting Crows covering Lou Reed’s “Pale Blue Eyes”.
On what album can I find the Buckley cover of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan?
I’ve always been partial to the Lemonheads’ version of Mrs. Robinson. The original is an ironic classic; the cover turns the irony on its ear.
Also, at the gym last night I switched the Cardio Theatre to the dance mix music channel and I swear I heard a hip-hop cover of the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Runnin’. Is this possible?
Best cover ever: Galaxie 500 doing “Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste,” The Modern Lovers. Also notable, Mogwai’s version of Guns and Roses “Don’t Cry.” Funniest cover ever is Pavement’s “Wonderwall.”
The Chili Peppers’ “Higher Ground” is a classic (more famous to most people my age than Stevie Wonder’s version).
Cash does a great cover of Loudon Wainwright III’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry.”
Phish’s Halloween Show where they covered the White Album is fun to listen to.
They Might Be Giants do a good cover of Cub’s “New York City” on their Factory Showroom record.
Everything But The Girl does a great version of Elvis Costello’s “Alison.”
And - if you can believe it - Mandy Moore does a fun cover of XTC’s “Senses Working Overtime” on her new record (which is all covers).
I forgot a couple.
The Moog Cookbook is a love-it-or-hate-it cover band that performs songs entirely with Moog (and other) synthesizers. I think they’re wonderful - particular favorites are the Offspring’s “Come Out and Play,” Green Day’s “Basket Case,” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
And Tori Amos does a brilliant cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”.
Some nods.
“Tonight, the Bottle Let Me Down”: Elvis Costello covering Merle Haggard with a wink and some fine steel work.
“Shine”: Dolly Parton covering Collective Soul. Really.
“Have a Little Faith in Me”: Bill Frisell covering John Hiatt
“Mystery Train”: Delbert McClinton covering the King, with the late Danny Gatton standing in for Scotty Moore to play a jaw-dropping lead guitar.
“Love Hurts”: Roy Orbison sings the definitive take on Boudleaux Bryant’s song.
“She Came in through the Bathroom Window”: Joe Cocker swinging a Beatles rocker.
Oh yeah, and the Presidents Of The United States’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” cover, I think from The Wedding Singer soundtrack.
I love that song.
In no particular order…
1. GnR’s cover of Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”
2. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s cover of Hendrix’s “Little Wing”
3. Hendrix’s cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”
4. Aerosmith’s cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together”
5. Van Halen’s cover of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”
6. Quiet Riot’s cover of Slade’s “Cum On Feel the Noize”
7. Alice Cooper’s cover of Sinatra’s “You and Me”
8. Aerosmith covering themselves (with Run DMC) on “Walk this Way”
9. Jeff Healey’s cover of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
10. James Taylor’s cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend”
11. Van Halen’s cover of The Kink’s “You Really Got Me”
and finally (call me a hopeless, frozen-in-time, 80’s kid)…
12. Great White’s cover of Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”
Cash- Hurt (NIN)
Tori Amos- Raining Blood (Slayer)
Cowboy Junkies, covering Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil Blues
Ice-T, covering Jimi Hendrix’s Hey, Joe
Wilco, covering Steely Dan’s Any Major Dude Will Tell You, the Replacement’s Color Me Impressed and the Ramones’ I wanna be sedated
A cover that really took over from the original:
Santana-Black Magic Woman (cover of the Fleetwood Mac song when Peter Green was in the band)
Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” by the Beatles on the “Pleasantville” Soundtrack. Female Beatles on Quaaludes.
I prefer John Cale’s cover of Cohen’s Hallelujah. Featured in the movie “Shreck”.
Gipsy Kings cover of Hotel California by the Eagles on “The Big Lebowski” soundtrack.
Joe Cocker’s “The Letter” by Wayne Carson/Box Tops.
Oh, and two more:
Bobby Darin, covering Louis Armstrong’s rendition of Blitzstein, Brecht and Weill’s Mack The Knife
Concrete Blonde, covering Roxy Music’s End of The Line…
And for good measure:
Tom Waits, covering Cole Porter’s It’s All Right With Me
and finally:
Nirvana, for ripping off The Pixies on every song they released.
Fuel has a live version of Elton John’s “Daniel” which is the best song I have ever heard. (I got it off Kazaa, I don’t know if it is available on CD).
Also, Smashing Pumpkins version of “Landslide” is a classic.
I don’t know if this is just a file sharing thing but I LOVE it when the Afghan Wigs cover Prince songs . . . esp. I could never take the place of your man . . .
And I think that the best covers are the ones that don’t just redo the song but really claim it for themselves. In that vein, DEVO’s Satisfaction ROCKS. As, for that matter, does Cat Power’s.
Not just Bondy but GNR!!! Live and Let Die. LOVE IT.
And while I hated it at first, Radiohead’s cover of Nobody Does it Better (Carly Simon) sticks with you.
I kind of like Cake’s I will Survive. But I hate the original.
Dinosaur Jr’s redo of the Cure’s Just Like Heaven.
The New Found Glory remake of Gin & Juice
crowded house’s cover of “pale blue eyes”, david gilmour’s cover of Elvis’s “don’t”, sinead covering prince, my cover of springsteen’s “drive all night” you’ll hear in on top 40 radio next yr, i promise, marillion’s cover of “fake plastic trees” manfredd mann covering “blinded by the ligh” (thats their song now, not springsteen’s)echo and the bunnymen “people are strange” growing i didn’t know the doors existed and didn’t need to, i thought this was echo’s tune. the alarm “knockin on heaven’s door” 5 years before GNR did it. when i heard gnr’s version i thought they were covering the alarm. johnny cash’s covers of sting “i hung my head,” DM “personal Jesus” and of course “hurt” i guess thats it.
Herman Brood (a junkie from Holland who, prior to his 2001 suicide, gained popularity in Europe as a performing artist)has a moving cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Use another Dutch music export, Kazaa, to track it down…
1: The Sonics covering Little Richard’s ‘Keep a Knockin” More punk than just about anything released in the last ten years, but also quite soulful.
Others:
Wonderwall by Cat Power (Oasis)
Killing Moon by Pavement (Echo and the Bunnymen)
Wait by Death Cab for Cutie (Secret Stars)
Some good picks.
I’ll add Nickel Creek covering Pavement’s “Spit on a Stranger.”
Santa Esmerelda covering “Please Don’t Let me Be Misunderstood” by The Animals. This is a wonderful cover and takes it into uncharted territory. Hear it on the “Kill Bill” soundtrack.
Ben Folds Five covering Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” - LIVE
Alien Ant Farm covering Michael Jackson’s “Annie Are You Okay”. Trendy, yes, but daring. The video is fun too.
A second to the nomination of the Gypsy Kings doing “Hotel California”. Really sweet.
I’d forgotten the Phish Halloweens (and the post-Halloween Dark Side of the Moon cover)–all pretty damned good. In my email to Henley, I unaccountably neglected Gary Jules’ fantastic cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” (featured in Donnie Darko).
Oh, one more. Obscure Norwegian band, Flunk, doing New Order’s “Blue Monday”. It’s mostly acoustic and really hits you.
Can I tell you my least favorite?
All country artists that cover non-country songs… ick
crowded house’s cover of “pale blue eyes”, david gilmour’s cover of Elvis’s “don’t”, sinead covering prince, my cover of springsteen’s “drive all night” you’ll hear in on top 40 radio next yr, i promise, marillion’s cover of “fake plastic trees” manfredd mann covering “blinded by the ligh” (thats their song now, not springsteen’s)echo and the bunnymen “people are strange” growing i didn’t know the doors existed and didn’t need to, i thought this was echo’s tune. the alarm “knockin on heaven’s door” 5 years before GNR did it. when i heard gnr’s version i thought they were covering the alarm. johnny cash’s covers of sting “i hung my head,” DM “personal Jesus” and of course “hurt” i guess thats it.
Posted by: on December 10, 2003 11:43 AM
Pete Yorn…is that you?
just a few…
Bonnie Raitt: Burning Down The House. She takes on Talking Heads and delivers the goods
Jeff Healy: Yer Blues, from the ‘Cover to Cover’ LP
They Might Be Giants: Jessica. Maybe not the best song for them to cover, but an interesting effort.
Santana: Black Magic Woman. You thought that was his song, didn’t you? Nope.
Blues is steeped in covers, but a few deserve mention:
Roy Buchanan: Drowning on Dry Land. One of the best examples of soulful, ‘Why me?’, hang-yourself-in-prison blues. A must for anyone who has ever been in a bad relationship
Allman Brothers: I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town. You can almost hear Duane’s guitar cry.
I thought of one more:
Big Head Todd and the Monsters version of “Boom Boom.” I don’t really know if it qualifies as a cover though, since John Lee Hooker does the vocals.
The Presidents of the USA do a fun cover of Willie Nelson’s “Devil in a Sleeping Bag”. It’s on a Willie Nelson tribute album called “Twisted Willie” which can be found on Emusic.com.
I heard a Ben Folds Five cover of Steely Dan’s “Barrytown” once–they really made it their own, but I’ll be damned if I can find it anywhere.
“Can I tell you my least favorite?
All country artists that cover non-country songs… ick”
I side with Elvis Costello on this one. He claimed that any song, covered by a great country singer, _becomes_ a country song.
“I heard a Ben Folds Five cover of Steely Dan’s “Barrytown” once”
There are some great, great Ben Folds covers out there - a live version of “Crosstown Traffic” that the piano can not have survived; the Elvis Costello rarity “Wave a White Flag” and another one in my collection that I can’t currently remember.
The Rolling Stones’ cover of Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down is pretty damn good. Jerry Lee Lewis does a fierce version of Merle Haggard’s Workin’ Man Blues. Johnny Cash basically owns a number of songs after his four American albums, but two of my favorites are Soundgarden’s Rusty Cage and Hank Snow’s I’ve Been Everywhere. And to go in the other direction, Social Distortion’s Ring Of Fire is a classic.
On the subject of songs like All Along the Watchtower in which the cover subsumes the original, I’ll add “Piece Of My Heart” by Big Brother & the Holding Company. Most fans don’t know that song was originally done by Aretha Franklin’s elder sister, Erma and was written by an industry mover who also wrote Twist & Shout. Needless to say, Janis & BB took it to a whole ‘nother level!
Cover-up
Radley Balko and his readers have been coming up with lists of the best-ever cover versions of songs. I don’t
Etta James doing Almost Persuaded absolutely blew me away, and there are several other soul covers of country songs near as good on the From Where I Stand: the black experience in country music CD set. I in fact played the middle disk of that set more than once this week.
“Gilded Goldbergs” Robin Holloway’s transcription of the Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach, performed by the Micallef-Inanga Piano Duo, qualifies as a cover because of the change in character which it gets.
Not many punk rockers on this site, are there? I count only one mention of a punk band’s cover - Social D’s Ring of Fire. Two if you count the Lemonheads. Are all the punks on the commie weblogs?
Their unfortunate propensity for left-wing politics notwithstanding, punk rock bands have delivered some absolutely brilliant covers of rock and roll, country, blues, folk and even top 40 classics.
There are just too many to list, but among my personal favorites are:
- The Ramones’ covers of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance?” and “Let’s Dance” (don’t know the original artist, but it was the food fight scene in Animal House)
- The Donnas’ covers of the Beach Boys’ “At the Drive In” and the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron”
- Black Flag’s cover of the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” (next to “Yesterday”, perhaps the most covered song in history)
- Green Day’s cover of The Who’s “My Generation”
- The Dropkick Murphys’ cover of “Finnegan’s Wake”
- Social Distortion’s covers of the Stones’ “Under My Thumb” and Kitty Wells’ “Makin’ Believe”
- Joan Jett’s cover of “Love is all Around” (the theme from the Mary Tyler Moore Show)
- Gang Green’s cover of Till Tuesday’s “Voices Carry”
- Anything by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (they’re actually a punk band that does *nothing but* covers), but especially their covers of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” and Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”.
Failure did a cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence that rocked pretty hard.
I’ll heavily second The Bad Plus’ “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It’s a wonderfully ominous rendition.
Locust’s cover of Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant” (off For the Masses) is a delicious little lounge-style duet.
Ricky Don’t Lose That Number by Wilson-Phillips. I don’t know that I’d bother listening to it again more than one more time, but, like the live action Masters of the Universe movie, it is awesome how much less it sucks than you would expect.
Cover Ups
Man, what’s all this stuff about cover songs? And how come no one’s mentioned the most classic cover of all time — William Shatner’s version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?”
Speaking of punk, how about Minor Threat’s (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ version of SSD’s Police Beat? Of coure, metal bands have done some pretty swell things with punk songs. Napalm Death’s Nazi Punks Fuck Off (from the Dead Kennedys) is a thing of beauty, and Slayer’s take on TSOL’s Abolish Government isn’t too shabby either. Six Feet Under does a nice job on Kiss’ War Machine, Sepultura’s rendition of Motorhead’s Orgasmatron is always welcome, and Metallica’s cover of Last Caress/Green Hell got a lot of headbangers to check out the Misfits, which practically qualifies as a public service.
Senor Coconut covering Kraftwerks “Home Computer” = genius
“Ol’ 55″ — Sara McLachlan covering Tom Waits — From the same album.
I like the cover of this song by The Eagles off On The Border.
“Amazing Grace” - The Lemonheads. Crazy emo-punk version of the god-fearing classic.
Okay, here’s one that might spur some to call me lame — but, damnit, I still like it:
Dynamite Hack’s cover of NWA’s “Boyz ‘N the Hood.”
Here’s a good one I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
Bill Murray’s rendition of Roxy Music’s “More Than This,” from the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack.
No order implied:
Sting covering Elton John’s “Come Down In Time”
Bono covering Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
Anne Sofie Van Otter covering ABBA’a “Like a Stranger Passing through My Room”
U2 covering Lou Reed’s “Satelite of Love”
Cassandra Wilson’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm”
Sid Vicious - My Way
Oh wait, we’re talking about good covers, not the worse thing to ever happen to music. Sorry.
I’m going to dig into the a capella here for a bit:
Off the Beat, from my alma mater, covered a number of songs well, but they had a woman who was a dead-on ringer for Jewel. Their covers of Who Will Save Your Soul and Foolish Games are absolutely phenomenal due to Miss Deutermann.
The Brown Derbies are probably the finest college a capella group going. I recommend everything they’ve ever done except for In the House of Stone and Light and Superstition. Other than that, get it allllll.
Back to instruments, I’m going to have to agree with Greg Swann at Presence of Mind and say Mindy Smith’s cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene is about as good a cover as there ever was.
On the funny side, Lounge against the Machine and Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies are hilarious.
- Josh
When the Cover-Up Is the Crime
I stayed clear of the conversation about cover songs last week — not because the topic bores me, but because even after racking my brain, I couldn’t think of enough examples worth mentioning. Not enough good covers, at least.If you…
In response to Post by: roger on December 10, 2003 10:58 AM…
Alice Cooper did NOT cover “Sinatra’s ‘You and Me’”. I don’t disagree that Alice Cooper’s “You and Me” is fantastic, but it is not a “cover”. The song is originally Alice Cooper’s. Sinatra covered Alice Cooper’s “You and Me”.
P.S. When was the last time Sinatra ever did a song of his own anyway to make you think “You and Me” was a sinatra song? He’s made a tremendous living covering songs and/or performing songs written by others. Although I’m by no means a Sinatra expert, I can’t think of a single song Sinatra ever performed that was his own.
http://www.ringtones-dir.com/get/ ringtones site free. ringtones site free, ringtones site, Free nokia ringtones here. From website .
jonny