A Post About Covers

This post started off as another in the "I Heartily Concur" series, highlighting what Daniel Radosh wrote a while ago about Alanis Morrissette's cover of the Black Eyed Peas' song "My Humps." In the addendum to his post he articulated something about music in general, and songwriting specifically, that I've been thinking about for a long time:

One thing worth noting about the Gordon and Gourds covers, and the Ben Folds one mentioned in the comments, is that they're songs you might actually listen to and enjoy entirely on their own terms. The same goes for Richard Thompson's Oops I Did It Again, Fountains of Wayne or Travis doing Baby One More Time, the entire oeuvre of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and [add your favorites here]. That's because the original songs are all genuinely good. By switching up genre, the cover artists reveal the quality songwriting that often gets hidden behind the production trappings, for better or worse (depending on whether you're a fan of the original genre).

On the other hand, no one will ever listen to Alanis doing My Humps more than once or twice. Because once you get past the humor of Alanis goofing on Fergie, what you're stuck with is a lousy song."

I love cover versions, and I especially love covers that do a song in a completely different style from the original. And while I was writing up this post, my mp3 player offered up The Gear Daddies' cover of the Johnny Wakelin obscurity "Black Superman," which currently occupies a place of honor on my quickly-growing covers playlist (entitled "David Coverversion").

Rather than a quick-hit, content-free post, I decided to spend a little time and dig up a dozen great covers to share with you all. Some, but not, take their subject song into a different genre; even those that don't, I believe, rise to the level of the original, and in some cases exceed it.

At any given time I could pull up a dozen other worthy covers, so let's call this the Covers Playlist v1.0. For some reason it's heavy on the countrified stuff:

Tarnation, "Little Black Egg" -- I know nothing about this band. In fact, I'm not even sure how I came into possession of their album 'Mirador.' I assume someone gave it to me when a bunch of my friends pitched in to help me rebuild my music collection after the Cedar Fire. Anyway, this cover of The Nightcrawlers' off-kilter 1965 garage rocker immediately caught my ear. It sounded like something that might end up in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Shake Your Fist charted the history of the song in a blog post last spring.

Otis Redding, "Satisfaction" -- Some are partial to Devo's cover, which is great, but Otis gives this Stones song the classic Stax/Volt treatment. Another amazing cover out of the Memphis scene is Wilson Pickett's version of The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" -- I've never heard such a trivial song given such unexpected depth & soul.

The Goo Goo Dolls, "Bitch" -- Long a staple of their live shows, this version of the Rolling Stones' romp appears on the 1993 Red Hot compilation No Alternative, and features Buffalo, NY legend-in-his-own-mind Lance Diamond on vocals.

Uncle Tupelo, "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" -- Originally recorded, I think, during the 'April 16-20, 1992' sessions and long unavailable until the 2003 re-releases. In addition to this Stooges classic, Tupelo recorded a number of covers, including The Louvin Brothers' "Atomic Power" and, of course, The Carter Family's "No Depression."

The Gipsy Kings, "Hotel California" -- I first heard this Spanish-language version of the Eagles' biggest hit on the severely underrated 'Rubaiyat' album, a collection of covers of Elektra artists by other Elecktra artists. It also includes Billy Bragg doing Love's "Seven & Seven Is," Metallica's cover of Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy," and a wild glam-trash cover of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" by Faster Pussycat.

Elvis Costello, "I'm Your Toy" -- One of the songs on 'Almost Blue,' Elvis' 1981 album of country covers which includes excellent takes on Hank Williams' "Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used To Do," Merle Haggard's "Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down," and George Jones' "Brown To Blue," among others. "Toy" was written by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman and released as "Hot Burrito #2" on The Flying Burrito Brothers' fantastic 'Gilded Palace Of Sin.' Raul Malo of the Mavericks has done a great, aching version of this song as well.

Johnny Cash, "Rusty Cage" -- Johnny did a bunch of excellent covers on his American Recordings albums, including Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," but his take on this Soundgarden tune is my favorite.

U2, "Dancing Barefoot" -- U2 has tossed off a handful of fantastic covers throughout their history, including a great version of the Darlene Love/Phil Spector Christmas classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," but none as fine as this Patty Smith cover, which originally appeared as the b-side of "When Love Comes To Town."

The Waco Brothers, "The Harder They Come" -- One of two great covers on the Bloodshot Records comp 'Making Singles, Drinking Doubles' (the other is Neko Case doing Loretta Lynn's "Rated X."), this surprised the hell out of me the first time I heard it. I knew very little about Jon Langford, but this song opened my eyes to his universe of music, for which I am eternally thankful every time I crank The Mekons' "Memphis, Egypt."

Jeff Buckley, "Hallelujah" -- Two other version of this classic (John Cale's on the Cohen tribute album 'I'm Your Fan' and Rufus Wainwright's from 'Shrek') are better known, but I think Buckley's version (from 'Grace') captures all the wistfulness of Leonard Cohen's original while still putting his vocal stamp on it. A sad reminder of what a great loss his death was.

R.E.M., "Wall Of Death" -- This is on the Richard Thompson tribute album Beat The Retreat, which includes a brilliantly tragic John Doe & Exene duet on "Shoot Out the Lights."

Mike Watt, "Maggot Brain" -- This Funkadelic cover appears near the end of Watt's all-my-friends-in-the-studio record 'Ball-Hog Or Tugboat?' and features J. Mascis channelling Eddie Hazel and keyboards by P-Funk's very own Bernie Worrell.

I'd love to hear what your favorite covers are -- post 'em in the comments.