I was listening to The Pina Colada song on the radio, and it reminded of how I felt the first time I heard it when I was young. I thought, “This guy is a real pig,” then when you think about it, his girlfriend is doing the same thing. I wonder how the song would have gone over if it had been sung by a woman?
This got me thinking, what songs would you like to see covered by an artist of the opposite sex?
One song I wouldn’t want to here covered by a guy is Charlene’s circa 1981 hit I’ve been to Paradise (But I’ve Never Been to Me). I saw a copy of the sheet music once, and it had lyrics for a guy to sing the song to. They’re even more insipid that the ones Charlene sings.
I know that the song has been covered by guys, but I’ve thankfully never heard any of these versions. According to the Wikipedia entry on it, the song was originally written for a guy, and Charlene’s lyrics are actually the revision. This is enough to make me lose all hope.
Britney Spears is tryna make a comeback. Let’s see her cover AC/DC’s Big Balls, with reversed lyrics.
Either her or Susan Boyle. 
I’d like Britney to cover “Sideshow” by Blue Magic.
I can think of a few existing ones I’ve liked.
RESPECT was originally written for a man
Don’t remember who did it, but there was a cover of I WILL SURVIVE by a male singer that I liked.
Indigo Girls did ROMEO AND JULIET (by Dire Straits), which worked reasonably well.
Cake, maybe?
Every Breath You Take should be covered by a woman but renamed Psycho Bitch.
I have a feeling a reversed-gender version of Goodbye Earl wouldn’t go over very well.
The Genitorturers take AC/DC’s Squealer and… well. That girl’s never gonna see a man again, I tell you what.
"A Girl Named Sue"
Then we can scratch our heads and say, “What’s your beef?” But still admire her fighting skills
“The house of the rising sun”, takes on a very differant meaning when sung by a woman
House of the Rising Sun was probably originally a song from the woman’s point of view. It requires quite a bit of work to turn a song about a traditional brothel into something about male degradation, but it’s pretty straighforward for it to be about the downfall of a woman. One of the first (if not the first) recordings of it was the 1937 recording by Georgia Turner.
But the famous version was by The Animals in the 1960s:
Yeah, that’s part of why I can’t enjoy that song. I can’t get the niggling feeling out of my head that this is really, really sexist.
I think that Don’t Want To Miss A Thing would seem either clingy, stalkerish, or both if sung by a woman. Roxanne might lose a lot of its punch, unless you could really emphasize a lesbian relationship. Fat Bottom Girls might flop if performed as a girl-power song but might work if the singer can really emphasize the sexuality inherent in the song.
Well, there’s always “Delia’s Gone” or “Hey Joe”. (Though both seem less serious than “Goodbye Earl”).
Forget to mention this. I think it works because the song is third-person.
Cake’s old cover of I Will Survive was interesting for this reason.
Oh, that certainly works (god, I loves me some Me First), but a guy singing about how getting together with an old friend to kill his shrew of a wife probably might raise a few eyebrows (although to be fair, Goodbye Earl raised a few of them itself when it was released).
“Babushka” by Kate Bush is pretty close.
How about a turkey from Dublin?
I’ve been to Bothar
And Kilfanora
And other places that are no fun.
Stole a rasher
From a butcher in Cashel
And now I’m on the run…
'Cause I’ve been run out of places
For paying with pesos
That look like the new 10Ps.
I’ve been to Tullamore
But I’ve never been to Meath.
The Wikipedia page mentioned this, but I never saw the lyrics.
Og knows they’re an improvement over both Charlene’s lyrics and the “original” male lyrics, even if they’re reduced to rhyming “rasher” with “Cashel”.
Janis Joplin did pretty well with her version of “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Lyle Lovett does a very interesting version of “Stand By Your Man.”