Cover Me

This week I am listening to covers. I have a love/hate relationship with the cover in that I love to hear an artist/band explore a new facet of a song whose potential for greatness I had once thought tapped by the original and I hate when, and how often, this fails to happen. The two mistakes a band/artist makes when attempting a cover are to a) be so faithful to the original that they might as well be performing karaoke, or b) long so desperately for the aforementioned unexplored facet that they lose whatever beauty made the song worth covering in the first place.

Here are a few covers that get it right...

1. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out -Joseph Arthur (originally performed by The Smiths)
Arthur walks that fragile line between honoring The Smiths and making the song his own. You immediately recognize this as the song you love (assuming you love this song and, really, how could you not?) and yet it sounds like a Joseph Arthur song. I find it a little less light-hearted than The Smiths' version, a little more somber, with a little more ache. I can't say that I prefer Arthur's version to The Smiths', but I can't say that I don't, either. And that's saying something.

2. Corona -Calexico (originally performed by Minutemen)
Calexico, like Arthur, manage to make this song all their own. The original version is a definitive Minutemen song and yet this cover fits perfectly alongside Calexico's own original work. The addition of horns helps make it sound more like Calexico, and, in fact, enhances the song overall, making the question of whether the cover trumps the original not a question at all; it does. This is a Calexico song.

3. Hallelujah -Jeff Buckley/John Cale (originally performed by Leonard Cohen)
So, I could go an entire lifetime without hearing one more cover of this song. It is, in my opinion, the most overcovered song there is. That said, I can't imagine having gone without hearing the versions performed by Buckley or Cale. Cale's is a little more straightforward than either the original or Buckley's cover, but that isn't a problem. In some ways, Cale reminds us how this song might have sounded if Cohen had written and performed it a decade earlier. Imagine the Leonard Cohen of the Songs era and what Hallelujah might have sounded like between Sisters of Mercy and So Long, Marianne. Cale makes it so that you don't have to. Buckley's version is more haunting than either Cohen or Cale and may capture the overall spirit of the song better than any other version, including the original. It is certainly my favorite version, and one of my favorite Buckley recordings.

4. I Saw Her Standing There -Daniel Johnston (originally performed by The Beatles)
The original version of this song is one of the best songs of the early shake/rattle/roll era Beatles. It is one of the songs I think of when I think of rock n' roll. It's Chuck Berry. It's Elvis. It's rowdy and raucous. It's wonderful. And, with the exception of wonderful, Johnston's cover is none of those things. Johnston's cover, like Johnston himself, is achingly shy, so much so that you wonder if he ever worked up the nerve to dance with her, let alone dance with another. But when he sings that his "heart went boom" you believe it, your own heart goes back to every awkward high school dance you ever attended. This isn't some rock n' roller dancing with whatever 17 year old girl presents herself, this is a guy who falls and falls hard. He won't dance with another. Ever.

5. My Favorite Things -John Coltrane (originally performed by the cast of The Sound of Music)
Elvis Costello's famous lyric sums up my feelings on the matter in his description of hell: "My Favorite Things are playing again and again, but it's by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane." Coltrane takes one of the sappiest songs ever written and turns crappy camp into a timeless free jazz landmark.

6. Dancing In The Dark -Ted Leo (originally performed by Bruce Springsteen)
Check. This. Out.



7. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart -Al Green (originally performed by The Bee Gees)
What? You thought that was an Al Green song? Yeah, that's because it is.

8. Respect -Aretha Franklin (originally performed by Otis Redding)
Unlike How Can You Mend..., the original is actually pretty great. However, like How Can You Mend..., the cover might as well be the original. This is Aretha Franklin's theme song.

9. Nothing Compares 2 U -Sinead O'Connor (originally performed by The Family)
Prince wrote it. The Family performed it. Prince also performed it, eventually. But nobody did it like Sinead O'Connor. This song is borderline forgettable when performed by both The Family and Prince, but it is haunting as hell when performed by Sinead. Man, I love this song.

10. Graceland -The Tallest Man On Earth (originally performed by Paul Simon)
I'll let this one speak for itself...



So...what is your favorite cover?