Cover Versions

[vince rocker]

Best I've heard this week is Bill Frisell and James McNew (Yo La Tengo) playing the Grateful Dead. Dark Star > Comes A Time, recorded live in Seattle a few days ago is a legal download at Archive.org http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=575535

And the worst is that BBC version of God Only Knows.

Vince

 

[gordon]

[YOUTUBE]tLveU2E-NkE[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Fulcrum]

Keep telling my girlfriend Butthole Surfer's cover of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man is way superior to the original -winds her up no end!

 

[mr.datsun]

The best cover version has got to be for me Jimi Hendrix - All along the watch tower

Regards,

Martin

Watchtower – one of those few cases where the cover is better than the original. Another, and one in my collection, is the Robert Wyatt single – I'm A Believer.

 

[cooky1257]

 

[gordon]

Keep telling my girlfriend Butthole Surfer's cover of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man is way superior to the original -winds her up no end!

i know that feeling .

 

[gordon]

i once read, and i'm paraphrasing, that college should be like the witness protection program, that if you come out with any semblance of your former self, something went terribly wrong. i think the same of good cover songs. they should contain no semblance of their former self.

 

[johnfromnorwich]

The oddest cover version in my collection:

I'd forgotten all about Bongwater. They did a whole bunch of very odd covers on that album (We Did It Again, Rain, Just May Be The One etc). I'm pretty sure I have an EP with them doing Four Sticks on it too. Their version of The Weavers' 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine' takes some beating though.

Another one I forgot was Coil / Tainted Love. It's extremely bleak.

 

[Tw99]

A few covers that stand out in my collection:

Bizarre Love Triangle - Frente [New Order]
A New England - Kirsty MacColl [Billy Bragg]
St Swithins Day - Dubstar [Billy Bragg]

 

[Klyde]

John Cale did a few nice ones, like Heartbreak Hotel and Pablo Picasso.

And what about the Fall doing Victoria? Or Quicksilver Messenger Service' version of Who Do You Love?

 

[Gaius]

Close Watch by Agnes Obel is a nice cover of a John Cale song!

 

[SteveT]

Wild is the Wind by David Bowie
I would Rather go Blind by Christine Perfect (Chicken Shack)

 

[JamesJamerson]

Hey Jude by Mr Pickett is of course always the winner but I do love:

Barbra Streisand doing Laura Nyro:

Otis Gayle doing the Detroit Spinners with a perfect Jackie Mittoo solo:

Luther destroying the audience with this Burt tune:

 

[mr.datsun]

Going Up Country (Canned Heat) - Violent Onsen Geisha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EONU0ByiGKI

Arab O Habab (Amos and Sarah) - The Hospitals

Happy Jack (The Who) - The Hospitals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr-w5ihk_ts

Into The Groove(y) - Ciccone Youth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azmC-g4eiC4

Spooky - Lydia Lunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQIvXQdJVQ

Dish It Out (J. Brown) - The Contortions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re6uN1lOTQw

Tropical Heatwave - James White & The Blacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6saiUngWbI

Is That All There Is - Christina. With new lyrics, was famously withdrawn due to the writers (Leiber and Stoller) suing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbhcIBA4YJs

3rd Reich 'n' Roll by The Residents is wall to wall (or ear to ear) cover versions and has a beautifully excruciating version of Hey Jude that turns into an equally excruciating version of Sympathy For the Devil, at the end of side 2 of the album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aN12nx-rN0

Controversially, I would claim that, The Residents' version of Satisfaction wiped the floor with Devo's nimsy frat-boy version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwpD79zATo

Henry Cow did a great pop piece called Bittern Storm Over Ulm, which was inspired by The Yardbird's Ode To Rasputin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT-J7eEZxkM

 

[Seeker_UK]

A great track from a damn good album of covers

[youtube]-dOMtMoGvO4[/youtube]

 

[mr.datsun]

Is Oh You Pretty Things written and sung by David Bowie, a cover version, because it was first a hit for Peter Noone?

 

[foxwelljsly]

 

[gassor]

Only heard it a few weeks ago, but Joseph Arthur's version of Walk on The Wide Side is fabulous. He brings out the pathos and sadness of the lifestyle described so well by Lou. Doesn't even have a girlie chorus.

 

[foxwelljsly]

David Yow does the Captain

 

[Mullardman]

As I have frequently been at pains to point out, the bulk of the above are NOT cover versions. They are simply different versions.

A 'cover' is a very specific device, being a recording released to 'cash in' on a current hit.

Thus, Cilla Black's execrable version of 'Anyone Who Had A Heart', was a clear cover of Dionne Warwick's original, and such practices were pretty much standard at the time, when the 'pop' industry was still largely controlled by the old guard of impresarios.

For E.g., the Searchers made a career out of covers of original and pretty much contemporary songs by Jackie De Shannon, The Orlons, The Drifters, etc. These practises were rife in the 1950s and early 60s and formed the basis of much of the Merseybeat and British 'beat' boom of the time.

By contrast, Bryan Ferry's 'These Foolish Things', is simply a version of a 'standard', originally written around 1936 and first popularised by Leslie 'Hutch' Hutchinson in the same year. Hardly a 'cover'.

Mull