overgrown garden

Cover Me

One of Swankette's comments on a recent post of mine got me thinking that maybe the subject of cover songs deserves its very own post. I still maintain there must be some sort of metric for what is and isn't going to be a good cover, but until I get the funding for that massive research project, I can only guess as to how it might work.

Criterion #1: The song must have been good enough in the first place to warrant a cover. This, of course, can be risky, since it means you will be compared to the original. If you screw up (Club Nouveau anyone?) you are hosed. Joe Cocker had some serious cojones covering the Beatles, but it worked out well for him (twice!) because the bones of the songs were so strong. Alternately, the original must have been obscure enough that it warrants a second version just to get it into people's ears once (for instance "No More I Love Yous," which most people don't even know was a cover).

Criterion #2: The cover artist must have something to add to the song. That doesn't necessarily mean it needs to sound radically different, though. Take "Higher Ground" for instance. The Red Hot Chili Peppers didn't make it sound hugely different from the original Stevie Wonder rendition, but the combination of slightly faster tempo and re-instrumentation made it sound like it could have been their song all along. Alternately, you can go the Crosby Stills Nash & Young way and totally rethink the meaning and sound of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock." It's best if the change doesn't sound tacked on, though. Much as I have a soft spot for Tori Amos's version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," it inspired a whole lot of aspiring cover artists to tackle good songs with nothing new to say except "but I'm doing it a lot slower!"

Criterion #3: You must, and I cannot stress this one enough, have actual talent. If at all possible, you should have demonstrated this by writing a song your own damn self before taking on someone else's work. To paraphrase Harlene Marley, I'm talking to all of you, but I am looking at you, Tiffany.

Now that my criteria have been established, I submit my nominees for best and worst ever recorded covers of songs:
Best cover: "A Little Help from My Friends," as performed by Joe Cocker. It's almost a totally new song. I could put it back-to-back with the original on a mix, and not feel like it was redundant.
Runner-up: "The Man Who Sold the World," as performed by Nirvana. It's the best song they never wrote, and somehow Cobain's voice actually suits the song better than Bowie's, which seems odd, but there you have it.
Worst cover: "Listen To Your Heart," as performed by (I have just learned) a Belgian group called DHT featuring Edmee. This fails on pretty much all counts. The song was weak to begin with and really didn't need to be reintroduced to the world, and on top of that, all the band does is a lackluster, acoustic, and of course slower replica of the original mediocre Roxette recording. The album also includes a cover of "At Seventeen," which makes me want to cry, just on principle. Oh, and Edmee's partner in crime is named (I am not making this up) Da Rick. Ugh.
Runner-up: Oh - way too many to even contemplate.

Anyhow - now it's your turn. What are your votes for best and worst cover songs?

posted by Alison @ 10:13 PM   12 comments

12 Comments:

At 12:30 AM,  Swankette held forth...

Regarding Criterion #3: I must respectfully disagree, or at least point out the exception to the rule, and that is Sid Vicious singing "My Way." He does the song justice in a way old blue eyes never did. Sarah Vowell agrees with me, so I'm not alone on that.

It will take me a few days going through the CD collection to get a definitive best and worst covers, "Hurt" as done by Johnny Cash comes to mind for best. Nine Inch Nails song made my ears bleed, but Johnny's really got it down. And I've currently got a really soft spot for "Too Drunk To Fuck" as covered by Nouvelle Vague, my new favorite cover band. 

At 12:39 AM,  TeacherRefPoet held forth...

I don't like Joe Cocker. Just my thing--I know other people like him.

I love John Lennon's version of "Stand By Me." It adds a little something to it.

Worst ever is William Shatner's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

Paula Cole does an acoustic version of "Jolene." I'm not a massive Paula Cole fan and not a massive Dolly Parton fan, but something about that combo really does it big time for me.

Swankette has a Paul Anka album--lounge versions of 80s and 90s songs. Awesome.

I guess I like it when the combination of artist and song raises my eyebrows, but it all works somehow. 

At 7:10 AM,  tommyspoon held forth...

My Best Cover Song: "I Fought the Law and the Law Won" performed by The Clash.

Runner Up: "God Only Knows" performed by David Bowie.

Purists of both originals would probably hate these versions. Which just makes me love them all the more... 

At 8:47 AM,  Hugh held forth...

Worst cover(s): "Here Comes the Flood" by Peter Gabriel, a piano-only cover of his own fascinatingly overblown original. In the same vein, Eric Clapton's lame-beyond-imagining remake of "Layla".

OK, remakes of your own songs don't really count.

Best Cover: Eric Cartman's rendering of "Come Sail Away". 

At 8:44 PM,  Alison held forth...

Swankette - I don't know that I've ever heard Sid Vicious sing "My Way." As a Sinatra song I've always hated it - it sort of represents the later-years bloated parody version of Sinatra - but I'm willing to give Sid a try.

TRP - Joe Cocker definitely seems to be a "love him or hate him" kind of thing. Oddly enough, his version of "A Little Help From My Friends" falls into the category of "covers I like better than the originals," along with the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower," the Stevie Ray Vaughn version of "Little Wing" and the Angelique Kidjo version of "Voodoo Child." (Thus endeth the Hendrix portion of the evening). Oh, and that Anka album is indeed awesome.

Tommyspoon - Totally with you on "I Fought the Law," although I can take or leave "God Only Knows."

Hugh - I dunno - it seems to me that if you can somehow destroy your own song, that deserves some sort of special honor. And thank you very much for getting "Come Sail Away" a la Cartman stuck in my head. Dammit. 

At 10:09 AM,  Joe held forth...

Oh, there are so many good choices. But TRP has put me in mind of Holly Cole's version of "Losing My Mind" on "Color and Light"... is it a cover when a jazz artist performs a musical theater piece?

Runner up, from scanning my iTunes... wow, I've got a lot... let's pick Joss Stone's "Fell In Love With A Boy." That song's got great bones.

Worst ever... whoever that whelp was in the '80s who recorded a pop medley of Freebird and Baby I Love Your Way... neither of which is actually a very good song in the original, but Lord that was a sappy formulaic remake.

And Hugh, I'll grant you the Peter Gabriel, but the next time you're out here, I'm going to force-feed you greens, grits, and fried chicken until you learn to like the acoustic version of Layla. 

At 10:15 AM,  Alison held forth...

Joe - The name of that oh-so-unfortunate group was "Will To Power." And yes, that pretty much wallowed in lame.

By the way, what with TRP's mention of Shatner, I am truly ashamed that I only now remembered the Leonard Nimoy version of "Proud Mary." Gads was that a stinker... 

At 7:30 PM,  Swankette held forth...

I have my official nominees now. I cannot get it down to one best, as getting it down to the short list has already taken up far too much ofmy time. I expanded Criterion #2 that you must not just ADD to the song, but must somehow IMPROVE UPON the song - catching it's meaning/emotion/vibe better than the original artist did. And for Criterion #3, I agree with the Tiffany concept, but am letting Sid stay in the mix, because although he may not be the most talented MUSICIAN in the world, he does have talent, and part of that's what's reflected in his cover.

The nominees:

"Hurt" by Johnny Cash
"Tainted Love" by Recoil
"My Way" by Sid Vicious
"Androgynous" by Crash Test Dummies

Honorable mentions:
"Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Presidents of the United States of America
"Enter Sandman" (or pretty much anything by) Apocoplyptica

- both of these break with at least one of the criteria, but still deserve kudos.

Worst cover:
"Norweigan Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" by The Fiery Furnaces.

Shatner and Nimoy at least have the cheeseball factor going - this rendition just mutilated a song I love very much. 

At 3:35 PM,  Anonymous held forth...

I'll second both the Sid Vicious "My Way" and the Tori Amos "Teen Spirit." Probably the best cover of all time was Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" which was so good that people forget that it was a Dylan tune. An obscure favourite of mine is "When You Were Mine" (original by Prince) as covered by the Blue Rubies (two women on mandolins). For a couple of good Central and Eastern European ones: "I Should Have Known Better" (Beatles)as covered by the Polish band Hey (female singer sounding a bit like Joan Jett and obviously enjoying the heck out of the song at a live concert), "Fever" by Oleg Skripka (mad Ukrainian with an accordian, somewhere between Elvis and Tom Waits), and, last but not least, the immortal cover of "One Step Beyond" (Madness) by Orkestra Bojana Ristica (a Serbian Gypsy brass wedding band oom-pah-ing through ska with incredible grace). Serbian wedding bands usually play nothing but wierd covers so I'd also give an honourable mention to the entire soundtrack of the film Underground which is mostly old White Button tunes from the 1980s with a memorable "Ya-Ya" (John Lennon) tossed in for good measure.

-Scott 

At 4:16 PM,  Anonymous held forth...

I'll second both the Sid Vicious "My Way" and the Tori Amos "Teen Spirit." Probably the best cover of all time was Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" which was so good that people forget that it was a Dylan tune. An obscure favourite of mine is "When You Were Mine" (original by Prince) as covered by the Blue Rubies (two women on mandolins).

For a couple of good Central and Eastern European ones: "I Should Have Known Better" (Beatles) as covered by the Polish band Hey (female singer sounding a bit like Joan Jett and obviously enjoying the heck out of the song at a live concert), "Fever" by Oleg Skripka (mad Ukrainian with an accordian, somewhere between Elvis and Tom Waits), and, last but not least, the immortal cover of "One Step Beyond" (Madness) by Orkestra Bojana Ristica (a Serbian Gypsy brass wedding band oom-pah-ing through ska with incredible grace). Serbian wedding bands usually play nothing but wierd covers so I'd also give an honourable mention to the entire soundtrack of the film Underground which is mostly old White Button tunes from the 1980s with a memorable "Ya-Ya" (John Lennon) tossed in for good measure.

While we're in the Balkans, Laibach's oevre is also mostly covers, including the deeply disturbing europop (Opus) "Life is Life" redone as a Fascist marching song. The lyrics of Queen's otherwise optimistic "One Vision" get durned spooky when they they are redone as a Nazi rally hymn:

No Blood, no stain,
All we need is:
One world wide vision.
One flesh, one bone,
One true religion,
One voice, one hope,
Gimme one vision!

(Pretty much everyone has realised by now that Laibach is essentially one large and bizarre piece of performance art, but they really freaked the Slovenians out when they first hit the stage.) They also covered the whole album of "Let It Be" and produced another album that consisted of eight versions of "Sympathy for the Devil."

Another good album full of covers is Folkways which includes a white-hot cover of "Rock Island Line" (Leadbelly) by Little Richard and a vicious "Bourgeois Blues" by Taj Mahal (as well as solid performances by everyone from Sweet Honey in the Rock through to U2 on other songs).

Cat Stevens' "Wild World" as covered by Mr. Big was the worst cover I can conciously remember.

-Scott 

At 4:26 PM,  Anonymous held forth...

There are too many bad covers to name, but as for the good ones there are two I'll give merit to:

While I didn't much care for the Soup Dragons' "I'm Free," I have to admit that they took a sub-par mid-60's Stones song about a girl and made it sound broader and more emcompassing of the human condition. Or something. Anyway, it's definitely a very different sound and a very different song, which is admirable.

My personal favorite is probably Husker Du's version of 8 Miles High. As opposed to the trippy, hazy feel of the original, the music and the vocals are much more frantic and frightened. It's a far more sinister and (literally) tortured version than the original, and a great clue of what was going on behind the scenes of that band.

Tom 

At 6:23 PM,  Alison held forth...

Tom - I agree with you about Bananarama and "Venus," but I adore the Bangles version of "Hazy Shade of Winter." By far the best thing about that movie, and very possibly the best Bangles song, because it's their one hit where they weren't forced to make it the Susanna Hoffs show. 

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