Cover versions we have actually liked

Cafe Society
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Long as it is, this is not a complete list. If you know the original artist where I don’t (or if I made a mistake), please provide the correct information.

Favorite covers:

Louie Louie – Kingsman (Richard Berry)
Route 66 – Rolling Stones (Bobby Troup)
Jenny Take a Ride – Mitch Ryder (Little Richard)
Gloria – Shadows of Knight (Van Morrison & Them)
War – Edwin Starr (Temptations)
Johnny B. Good – Jimi Hendrix (Chuck Berry)
John Barleycorn – Traffic (traditional)
Feelin’ Allright – Joe Cocker (Traffic)
Shake Your Money Maker – Fleetwood Mac (Elmore James)
Move Over – Slade (Janis Joplin)
C’mon Everybody – Humble Pie (Eddie Cochran)
Silver Train – Johnny Winter (Rolling Stones)
Maybelline – Ted Nugent (Chuck Berry)
Chevrolet – Foghat (?)
Rated X – Pat Benatar (Nick Gilder)
Do You Wanna Touch Me – Joan Jett (Gary Glitter)
Real Wild Child – Joan Jett, Iggy Pop (not sure who did this first – Buddy Holly, maybe?)
Summertime Blues – Joan Jett, Blue Cheer (Eddie Cochran)
Star Star – Joan Jett (Rolling Stones)
Stupid Girl – Ellen Foley (Rolling Stones)
I’m Not Your Stepping Stone – Sex Pistols (Monkees)
Friggin In The Riggin – Sex Pistols (traditional – the basis for Yankee Doodle Dandy?)
Down On The Farm – Guns n’ Roses (UK Subs)
Raw Power – Guns n’ Roses (Stooges)
Search And Destroy – Red Hot Chili Peppers (Stooges)
Brontosauras – Lee Harvey Oswald (The Move)
Breadfan – Metallica (Budgie)
So What – Metallica (Anti-Nowhere League)
Come Together (live version) – Aerosmith (Beatles)
Spider-Man – Ramones (tv cartoon theme song)
California Sun – Ramones (?)
Let’s Dance – Ramones (Chris Montez)
You Really Got Me – Van Halen (Kinks)
You’re No Good – Van Halen (Linda Ronstadt)
I Ain’t Superstitious – Jeff Beck (Willie Dixon)
Back Door Man – Doors (Willie Dixon)
American Society – L7 (Eddie & the Subtitles)
Hangin’ On The Telephone – L7 (Blondie)
Jenny Says – Cowboy Mouth (Dash Rip Rock)
I Saw The Light – Dash Rip Rock (Hank Williams)
Winnebago Warrior – Mojo Nixon (Dead Kennedys)
Rock ‘n’ Roll – Mitch Ryder & Detroit (Velvet Underground)
Gimme Shelter – Mitch Ryder & Detroit (Rolling Stones)
House Party – J. Geils Band (?)
Emergency – Motorhead (GirlSchool)
Cat Scratch Fever – Motorhead (Ted Nugent)
Who Do You Love – George Thorogood (Bo Diddley)
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer – George Thorogood (John Lee Hooker)
The Green Manalishi – Judas Priest (Fleetwood Mac)
I Got A Right – Misfits (Iggy Pop)
Covers that should never have been recorded:

I Wanna Be Your Dog – Joan Jett (Stooges)
Stray Cat Blues – Johnny Winter (Rolling Stones)
I Want To Tell You – Ted Nugent (Beatles)
Helter Skelter – Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Pat Benatar (Beatles)
Dancing In The Streets – Mick Jagger/David Bowie (Martha Reeves)
Satisfaction – Devo (Rolling Stones)
Johnny B. Good – Judas Priest (Chuck Berry)
Be My Lover – Mojo Nixon (Alice Cooper)

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And a question about a more recent cover, if anyone has heard of it: http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005519.html

RTA, I never would have guessed that anyone else on this board had ever even HEARD of Lee Harvey Oswald. Great CD.

“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra

43

Among the best covers of all time (and all far better than the originals, in my opinion) are:

  1. "Rod Stewart’s cover of the Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You”

  2. The Beatles’ covers of CHuck Berry’s “Rock & Roll Music” and Little RIchard’s “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” (Man, could John Lennon belt out a rock and roll song!)

  3. The Rolling Stones’ cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away”

  4. Guadalcanal Diary’s cover of the BEatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing”

  5. Deep Purple’s cover of Joe South’s “Hush”

  6. The Jeff Beck Group’s cover (with Rod Stewart on vocals) of Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up”

  7. Joe Cocker’s cover of the Box Tops’ “The Letter”

  8. Dave Edmunds’ cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “From Small Things (Big THings One Day Come)”

  9. Linda Ronstadt’s cover of ROy ORbison’s “Blue Bayou”

  10. Jimi Hendrix’ cover of “Hey Joe”

I’ll unjdoubtedly think of 50 more good covers as soon as I click “submit,” but 10 seems like plenty from one guy.

44

good morning friends,

i must first qualify what i am about to say by admitting that i am not a country music fan.

i really dislike country music covers of rock tunes. my typical example: faith hill’s cover of janis joplin’s “piece of my heart”

and because i am admittedly not a country fan, i have no idea who the artists are for these, but there have been country covers of aerosmith “i don’t want to miss a thing” eric clapton “wonderful tonight” the grateful dead “truckin”

alana myles had a pretty good tune, “black velvet” on the pop charts. about a week after it dropped out of the top ten, there was a country cover.

maybe the most amusing is a middle aged country singer singing the line: “i’d like to help you son but you’re too young to vote” in a country cover of eddie cochran’s “summertime blues”

one already mentioned: natalie cole’s remix version of “unforgetable.” possibly, natalie singing with her father via technology was a touching and nostalgic moment, but getting the grammy award for best song? maybe we should term it the “milli vanilli grammy” or the “karioke grammy”

“don’t get strung out by the way that i look, don’t judge a book by it’s cover” (tim curry as dr. franknfurter in rhps)

45

I must disagree. This one always makes me want to jump out the nearest window. (Of course, I didn’t care for the original, either, but Whitney’s is worse.)

Don’t forget “Boogie On Reggae Woman” (Stevie Wonder), and “Get Jiggy Wit It” (Will Smith), which is fun if not virtuoso. I don’t care for their “Bold as Love”, though.

Phish does a lot of great covers–two of my favorites are “Loving Cup” (the Stones) and “When the Circus Comes to Town” (Los Lobos).

Don’t listen to “Hey Jude” on Disc 1 of “2-11-68 (Good Morning Little Schoolgirl)”. Not one of Pig’s finest moments. I always particularly loved “Dear Mr. Fantasy” from “Without a Net”.

Actually, “Blood on the Tracks” is one of my favorite albums. I guess I’m in the minority here in thinking that Dylan’s songs lose something when someone else does them. His voice may not be pretty, or even tonal, but he packs more emotion into one sneering moan than most singers have in their entire ouevre.

That said, Joan Baez is the best interpreter of Dylan’s work–I saw her join the Indigo Girls to do “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”. (I was stage security, and Joan looked me in the eye and laughed as I was singing along. Great moment.)

That kicks so much ass! The whole “Crucify” EP is great–in addition to “Teen Spirit”, she covers the Stones’ “Angie” and Zeppelin’s “Thank You”. One that she does occasionally in concert that I’d love to hear is “Wrapped Around Your Finger” by the Police. (It should be pointed out that these are all solo piano and vocal arrangements. You’d just have to hear it.)

Some of my favorite covers:
–“Crosstown Traffic” (Hendrix) by Medeski, Martin, and Wood. You want to talk about having your own take on a song.
–“Kathy’s Song” (Simon and Garfunkel) by Shawn Colvin, on her “Live '88” disc. Not a big departure from the original, but I like it anyway.
–“1999” (Prince), by the Asylum Street Spankers. The definitive jug band version.
–“Apache Rose Peacock” (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Dr. J’s solo acoustic version. Actually, this one really sucks, but if you get me drunk at a party you might have to hear it anyway. :slight_smile:

Dr. J

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UB40’s “Red, Red Wine” (Neil Diamond)
Sting’s “Come Down in Time” (Elton John)
George Michael’s “Tonight” (Elton John)
Aerosmith’s “Come Together” (Beatles)
Luther Vandross’ “Killing Me Softly”(Roberta Flack)

Strangely, three of the best covers are slowed down, or acoustic versions, of a song previously recorded by the same band (does that count as a cover?):

Police “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”
Eric Clapton “Layla” and
Heart “Alone”

47

Someone has already mentioned “Any Bob Dylan song sung by anyone other than Bob Dylan.” Let me add to that “Any Bruce Springsteen Song sung by anyone other than Bruce Springsteen.”

Including:
Blinded By the Light, Spirits in the Night, and I Came for You by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

48

Hendrix’ cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” is already well represented. I’ll include Dave Mason’s cover of Hendrix cover.

Another Dylan cover - “Baby Blue” as per the 13th Floor Elevators.

49

Bonnie Raitt’s cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” is fantastic.

Linda Ronstadt covered about a zillion Warren Zevon songs, but none of them were as good as the originals.

The Cowboy Junkies have an album called “The Trinity Sessions” which is essentially a collection of covers, and it is phenomenal.

50

Big second (or third, or however many it’s been) to Tori Amos’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Truly haunting, and something to go back to when the swirly nature-sylph stuff on the latest albums gets too annoying.

Another candidate: Billy Joel does “Back in the U.S.S.R.” on his Russian live album. Now, I’d hardly say the Beatles are outdone by his version, but there’s something truly unique and thrilling about a born-in-the-USA rocker taking a Western rock classic and blasting it out for a Soviet audience. The roar of the audience when they recognize what’s coming up – it gives you chills.

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Someone already mentioned Tori Amos’ cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit'' so I'll add her cover of Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat’’…

``Beware of elaborate telescopic meat; it will find its way back to the forest.’’
– William S. Burroughs, Tom Waits

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It sounds exactly the same except with Bowie’s voice instead of Cobain’s.

A nice enough version, Nirvana’s, but definitely in the category of “no imagination” covers.

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You will either love it or hate it but The Cardigans’ cover of Iron Man is a must hear.

Very different from the original.

And is there a college band that doesn’t do Iron Man?

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The Cardigans also did “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” on an earlier album. I think by the time they got to “Iron Man” the joke was kinda old :slight_smile:

Another great cover I’d forgotten about is the Pogues’ version of Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town” - a perfect example of a band taking someone else’s song and truly making it their own.

55

friend dhanson:

i couldn’t agree more! bonnie rait is a consumate professional, and i am sure john prine liked her interpetation.

i am also fond of the trinity sessions album

“don’t get strung out by the way that i look, don’t judge a book by it’s cover” (tim curry as dr. franknfurter in rhps)

56

U2 did a decent cover of Helter Skelter on Rattle&Hum, in addition to All Along the Watchtower. Stone Temple Pilots did Dancing Days on the Led Zepplin tribute album. It was light years better than Sheryl Crow’s D’Yer Mak’r, which has to be one of the worst covers ever. And anyone who has had the fortune to see Phish live a few times has probably heard some great covers. They once did the entire Dark Side of the Moon album (I hope everyone knows that’s Pink Floyd) for their second set.

57

Dr. J is the man when it comes to music.

I was about to respond to the person that bashed Dylan’s “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” (one of my favorite Dylan songs), or anything on that immaculate album. But you beat me to it.

I must take offense to one thing, though. Phish’s “Bold as Love” is absolutely awesome. I don’t really care for “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” or “Boogie on Reggae Woman.” Ah well. I do LOVE “When the Circus Comes,” though (although I’m not a big fan of the Lobos version), but I was confining myself to covers that appear on a major label release. But, if we’re going to concert faves, I also love Phish doing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (Beatles), and “Born to Run” (Springsteen). Also, “Funky Bitch” is a cover too (Son Seals). I’m not crazy about the version that appears on the box set, in part because I also have a copy of them playing that song with Carlos Santana. This kind of biases me to all other versions.

And I also strongly dislike “Hey Jude” on the Fillmore CD. When I got it I was all excited to hear it, but it was a major disappontment.

DUDE!! Where can I hear MMW doing “Crosstown Traffic”???

The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.

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Rousseau–I have it as filler on a Phish tape. I understand they encore with it pretty often, so if you look around you should be able to find it. (Mine is pretty crappy.)

Page’s voice just doesn’t do “Bold as Love” for me. I’m partial to “Boogie On” because I was there when they broke it out (Dayton, 12/97).

JP

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I can’t believe I forgot to mention Hendrix, especially All Along the Watchtower. I guess, as an excuse and an apology, I can offer this quote from Bob Dylan, when asked if he was surprised how many covers of his songs the Jimi did (wording close, maybe not exact)

In a similar note, I have to mention that I absolutely love the Dave Mathews Band cover of All Along the Watchtower that appears on the Live at Redrocks album.

And now that I’ve heard Phish has covered “Sabotage” I will probably have to go find that box set and buy it. I can hardly wait :slight_smile:

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<font color=#FF30c0>Majormd</font>

Wait. Even Roger Miller’s version came out long before Joplin’s. Or is this just one of the “more definitively” catagory? In which case, probably half of the covers mentioned fall into that catagory.

<font color=#FF30c0>Tengu</font>

I just heard a Bruce Cockburn cover of Blueberry Hill, with Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins. Wheeee. Here’s a clip.

<font color=#FF30c0>John Rush</font>

Who
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