Johnny Cash in his later American Recordings years covered a variety of songs from different genres. The most famous country-fied one was Nine Inch Nails’ song Hurt. The NIN version was nominated for a Grammy and the Cash version got all sorts of award recognition.
And in turn, other country artists have covered the song Cash-style.
Children’s author Shel Silverstein is also a gifted lyricist who has written some country songs
Thanks, OP – I’ve been wanting to start a thread like this for quite a number of years and never got around to it.
Here’s another from Sting (and it was later covered by actual country singer and A-1 level redneck Toby Keith): I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying
The Dandy Warhols, perhaps best known for Bohemian Like You from the album Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, included Country Leaver on the same album.
Many of the others I can think of have already been mentioned, including some of the Rolling Stones’ countrified songs. As an aside, my wife and I were driving through Colorado Springs last Saturday and the Stones’ *Gimme Shelter *came on the radio. That song is not country-ish, but I started thinking about some of their other songs that are, including Wild Horses. There’s some debate about whether *Wild Horses *is a Richards/Jaggar song or if Gram Parsons wrote it; Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers released it on Burrito Deluxe the year before Sticky Fingers came out, but according to most accounts it was originally written by Richards and Jaggar.
Anyway, just as I started thinking about Wild Horses, we passed a building in Colorado Springs belonging to Parsons, which is an engineering firm. Regardless of who wrote the song, I thought that was a nice little coincidence.
Has anyone mentioned Blanco Brown’s The Git Up:
:DI was chasing down links to the songs I suggested, and I discovered Elvis Costello did not write Changing Partners. Patti Page recorded it in 1953!
I’m struggling to get used to a new vertical wireless mouse, and it tripped me up. It has Forward & Back thumb buttons, very close to my big, twitchy old thumb. In the SDMB software, when you Back out of a mostly-finished reply, it’s gone when you go Forward again. I’m trying not to scream at my computer (and my ignorance), so I need to take a break. I’ll get back to you later.
Yeah, wguy123, The Git Up is a solid fit here!
At that, Garth Brooks got his seventh Number One hit on the Billboard country charts by listening to Billy Joel’s song “Shameless” and realizing, hey, if you sing it with a twang, those lyrics and that tune are right in my wheelhouse…
The Beatles’ “I’ve Just Seen a Face” is a mandolin or banjo away from being pure bluegrass.
The band Cake has more country in them than you’d realize. “Stickshifts and Safetybelts” jumped out to me when I first listened to the Fashion Nugget album.
Velvet Underground - Lonesome Cowboy Bill. Alrighty then.
That’s a fine song. I also suggest his song “Different Finger.”
A significant chunk of the oeuvre of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show could be reconceptualized as country.
But they’re generally regarded as rockers.
The Bee Gees wrote “Islands in the Stream”. They also wrote “Come On Over”. Both are great country tunes!
Bob Dylan wrote many, including the whole “Nashville Skyline” album. Another not so well known example I always liked is his country waltz “Wallflower”. It was first released on an album by Dylan’s pal Doug Sahm, with “background” vocals by Dylan that in fact were so prominently mixed to the front that it almost can count as a Dylan recording.
Patti Smith also likes the song. She once said that she saw herself as the “wallflower” when she first listened to the song.
That’s an interesting observation - tho I imaging not really what the OP was asking.
I play in a lot of BG jams, and people bring all manner of songs - including Beatles tunes. When WE play them - w/ fiddle/banjo/mando, and no drums - they sound bluegrassy.
Recently I had Stuck in the Middle w/ You going through my head. I wondered how it would work as BG. Delved into YouTube and found a TON of examples of people doing just that. I worked up the words and chords, found a key I could sing it in, and tried to do it w/ my group, but it wasn’t anything we wanted to work up.
Same more recently w/ Tom Waits’ Come On Up to the House. Sarah Jarosz does a wonderful version on mando - but I wouldn’t call it a BG tune.
How bout Nashville Cates - by John Sebastian/Lovin Spoonful? Del McCoury does a wonderful version.
Sorry, too late to edit: Maybe Dylan’s most famous country song, in which he even rhymes moon with spoon(!), “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”.
The Kinks also had a few, e. g. Muswell Hillbilly.
Not really a country song, per say. But lead guitar riff in St. Vitus Dance by Black Sabbath definitely has a country “twang” to it.
Joy - YouTube Nilsson’s Joy has Nicky Hopkins doing his best Floyd Cramer on piano, Ray Rhodes on pedal steel guitar, and Peter Frampton (!) on electric guitar.
I with you there, and that one, If I’d Only Come And Gone, has brilliant lyrics, one of the hallmarks of country music