Chris Kenner’s Land of a Thousand Dances, amended and made a hit by Cannibal and the Headhunters, made absolutely legendary by Wilson Pickett, then held against its will in a dungeon room, starved, reduced to a persistent vegetative state and mocked as it died by
The Lawrence Welk Show.
I honestly think that it would be impossible to find professional entertainers, by which I’m not talking garage bands or some fringe group that once got paid the equivalent of twelve dollars and a free beer when they rubbed themselves in elephant excrement and shrieked a Yoko Ono number in a seedy Goth club in Whitehall for Jack the Ripper’s Anniversary, but people who actually made a living from performing and who performed before more than a few dozen people in their career, who ever performed a greater musical emetic than their performance of this song. However, if you have a contender for a worse reinterpretation of a hit, please feel free to post it.
There is one example that haunts me to this day. Back in the 60’s there was a family singing group called The Kings Singers (or maybe the King Family, I forget which.) They were this huge family group that had a variety show and split into different singing groups during the show … it was kinda like somebody sopped up the leakage from the Lawrence Welk Show.
At any rate on one show they decided to do a medley of Beatles songs which was okay as each smaller group did their own thing with various songs. But then at the end, they all came together into one big group and did “Hey Jude.” Including one of the older female singers, during the closing choruses, trying to copy Paul’s vocal improvisations right down to the letter!
“Hey Jude - a Jude - a Jude - a Jude - a Jude - a ooow … wha-how!”
The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” has been massacred by Limp Bizkit. (No, I won’t link to their version, and if you want to do yourself a favour, don’t search for it)
Can I ask, not agreeing or disagreeing with you, what is so bad about the All Saints version of Under The Bridge to make it the worst cover ever by a professional artist?
The Lawrence Welk show played music that was all technique and no passion or soul. If you take a song that’s all about soul, of course they’re going to muck it up.
The award for the worst cover of a good song by a normally great band goes to the Smashing Pumpkins version of Landslide. I’ve heard SP do other awful covers, but this one is the worst.
Mercifully, I’ve pretty much blocked out the details of the worst cover ever. It was the early 1980s and I was at a roller rink when I heard a disco version of a Pink Floyd song. I don’t recall (and don’t want to know) which song and never knew who did the murderous deed. I only heard it that one time.
If I was a musician for that orchestra, I’d go home and drink heavily to ease the karmic pain. I can imagine most of the players calling their agents after every performance:
:: phone rings, agent Morty picks up::
AM: “Hello.”
::quiet sobbing on line::
AM: “Hello? Hello?”
::deep, shuddering breath, sniffles, resumed sobbing::
AM: “Alex? Alex, is that you?”
::nose blowing:: “Ah Christ, I can’t take it, Morty.”
AM: “What, this again. Buck up, Alex.”
Alex: “You don’t understand, Morty. He made us play In A Gadda Da Vida while those two chirpy assholes sang and those two grinning morons danced. And the bridge, Morty, the bridge. . .ah Christ. . .”
AM: “What about the bridge, Alex? How bad could it be?”
Alex: It was Myron, Morty. Fucking Myron and that goddamned accordian. He did a polka riff, Morty: a fucking polka riff!"
AM: “Calm down Alex.”
Alex: “You gotta get me another gig, man. I swear to god, if I have to play one more Metallica song in waltz tempo, I’m buying a shotgun.”
I’m kind of with you. It wasn’t the early 80’s, and it wasn’t a roller rink, but this disco hatchet job of Comfortably Numb is the worst cover ever. Scissors Sisters can go on to cure cancer and find homes for every stray animal on the planet, but they will still be guilty of this crime against humanity. What the hell was Waters thinking when he said “Sure, that sounds like a wonderful idea for a cover, and you are just the ones to do it!” Is money that tight for him?
I met some of the Lawrence Welk performers through a friend, and they were The. Creepiest. People.
All big fake smiles and perfect makeup and exactly correct fashion… with so much seething psychic angst and bitterness underneath it all, that it actually haunts me to this day.
The Golden Throats series gets a prize for this sort of thing. On the first album they have Jack Webb – “Mr. Warmth” himself from Dragnet rex-harrison-speaking a version of “Try a Little Tenderness” that makes you wish for those refueling bombers from Dr. Strangelove.
But I think it’s beat out for Worst Cover by Andy Griffith’s rendition of House of the Rising Sun (also on the first Golden Throats album). They changed the lyrics so much that you have no conception of what the song is supposed to be about, because good ol’ Sheriff Andy couldn’t possibly be singing about a House of Ill Repute.
Actually, I don’t think Jim Nabors – quite a good singer, and the song is in his genre – or Muhammed Ali – who does a pretty good job – really belong on the collection. But their personae make their songs curiousities.