covering
Reihan’s Grammy-and-Emmy-and-Oscar-worthy performance reminds me, inevitably perhaps, of one of my favorite pub debate topics: What are the best covers ever? No, not cover art, I mean new performances of old songs. There are probably a hundred sites on the web that offer lists, but most of them kinda miss the point, at least as far as I’m concerned. For instance, two songs you see on a lot of those lists: Cream’s version of “Crossroads” and Hendrix’s take on “All Along the Watchtower.” But those are covers of songs that were already great — in the case of Dylan’s song, great in a very different way that the Hendrix version, but still an extraordinary song. Hendrix takes it to another level, but he had a hell of a lot to work with. And Cream is just electrified Robert Johnson, which is not necessarily better than, you know, Robert Johnson.
No, I think a truly great cover is one that takes a mediocre song (or worse) and transforms it into something amazing. This takes the acuity to find something hidden in the song that other people can’t hear, and the imagination to present that hidden thing so the rest of us can hear it. For me the ultimate examples are (1) what The Clash did with The Bobby Fuller Four’s insipid “I Fought the Law,” and (2) Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt,” which I guess is actually a pretty strong song in the original Nine Inch Nails version — but Trent Reznor was both gracious and right when he said, after seeing the Cash video, “That isn’t my song anymore.”
And then there’s, um, this:
That youtube video is rough. oy. I’ve always liked Kurt Cobain’s cover of “Man Who Sold The World”, but that could be based on idiosyncratic teenage memories.
I think ‘Hurt’ has to take top prize; I still don’t much care for the NIN version, despite loving the Cash version. The production on the NIN version seems to calculated to me.
If ‘All Along the Watchtower’ counted, I’d pick that; any cover that has my favorite guitar solo/arrangement of all-time has to come first.
— John · Feb 23, 05:39 PM · #
Alan,
The fact that you fail to single out Kermit The Frog’s cover of Johnny Cash’s cover of ‘Hurt’ is such a large oversight, that the only explanation I can come up with for it is that you are a mole, working for Osama bin Laden, seeking to bring down America through the promotion of vastly inferior works of music. I haven’t figure out how Saddam Hussein is involved, but I am confident that a link is there somewhere.
This is, of course, a positive development for John McCain.
— David Samuels · Feb 23, 06:34 PM · #
David: my cover is blown.
— Alan Jacobs · Feb 23, 08:12 PM · #
One, I think that Byrne cover, which I wasn’t aware of, is actually pretty inspired. Certainly the best Whitney Houston song I can think of, and (or perhaps because) the most David Byrne-like.
Two, I might nominate a too-obvious choice – too obvious because it’s famous and because it’s from the same album as the song Reihan has just imprinted on my visual and auditory memory. I.e. “What’s so Funny (About blah blah blah).” An o.k. Nick Lowe song about peace and love and understanding that Elvis makes great (and funny) by infusing it with his (at the time) characteristic venom. It’s like people finding peace and love and understanding funny makes him so mad he could just kill them.
— Matt · Feb 23, 09:13 PM · #
Matt: and now we have the totally earnest and beautiful Holmes Brothers version of WSFAPL&U. Check it out if you don’t know it.
I first saw Byrne do “Dance With Somebody” on Austin City Limits, and he introduced it by saying, “Now I’d like to play a song that my mother used to sing to me when I was a little boy.”
— Alan Jacobs · Feb 23, 10:26 PM · #
“I put a Spell on You.” Compare Sreamin’ Jay Hawkins’s version with the covers by CCR (good) and Nina Simone (knock you back fantastic).
— Llegar Tarde · Feb 24, 03:25 AM · #
The covers that I think are most special are ones where the original was very good and the cover is also very good, but in a really different way. Examples: “Sweet Jane” by the Velvet Underground and then by the Cowboy Junkies. “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry and by Peter Tosh. “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and by Devo.
— Mike · Feb 25, 12:02 AM · #
Hey, that David Byrne cover’s pretty good! Though not as good as Eno’s version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.
— Jesse Fuchs · Feb 28, 06:57 PM · #