Joan Osborne’s cover of [Spooky](Share this video Spooky- Joan Osborne - YouTube).
Dylan’s “House of the Rising Sun” from his first album.
I’m not sure who Tiffany Alvord is, but singing Magic’s rude from a female perspective really adds weight to the lyrics here
I’m not sure what you mean by the “gender of the song”. The Bryan Ferry version doesn’t change the gender of the narrator’s love interest, it’s still a guy named Johnny, but I don’t think there’s anything in the lyrics that specifying that the narrator is a woman and it doesn’t seem like Ferry is trying to sound like a woman. It sounds to me like his version of the song is about a man in love with another man, which is a change to the narrator’s gender.
Tiffany Alvord is a YouTube celebrity with over 2 million subscribers. She also has a record deal.
However, I don’t recall male singers going for female parts. I can´t recall even one (non-comedy)-
Women singing “male” songs/covers is a zillion times more common.
Well, half of them are songs sung by women with the subject gender’s remaining the same… while half of them are songs sung by men, with the subject’s gender switched.
Suzi Quatro sang I wanna be your Man.
Judy Collins Someday Soon, was written by Ian Tyson. When Tyson sings it, well, it’s sort of a cover since she had the hit, even though it’s his own song, he doesn’t change the gender.
When Sinead O’Connor addresses Mama in Nothing Compares 2 U, I believe she’s using the original gender as written by Prince.
Digging in the ancient archives, we find This Old House by Stuart Hamblen (1954), also famously recorded by Rosemary Clooney, where something different happens.
In the original lyrics, an aging singer tells of his own impending death in the first person (“I’m a-getting ready to meet the Saints”) while speaking metaphorically of his crumbling old house, personified with third-person pronouns like “he”, “him”, and “his”.
In the Clooney version, she doesn’t change any genders, but instead sings of the aging guy in the third person (changing the pronoun “I” to “he” in various places, “my” to “his”, etc.), but continues to sing of the old house in the third person with the pronouns “he”, “him”, and “his”.
Overall, this somewhat garbles the story of the song, and the use of the third person pronouns makes it hard to tell which lines are talking about the aging guy and which lines are talking about the aging house:
In Clooney’s version, it sounds like the house is getting ready to meet the Saints, and it’s less clear why the singer doesn’t need the house any longer. Elsewhere throughout the song, likewise, the third-person pronouns seem to refer to the old house, when in fact they should refer to the old guy who’s about to meet the Saints.
Happens for example in flamenco’s old palos, quite a few coplas, some boleros as well (and those aren’t flamenco). I don’t think there’s many instances of fumando espero by “guy guys”, but I’ve heard la violetera or amarraditos. That’s recorded, in concerts you get a ton more. There’s also songs which were written as a duet, with two distinct parts, but sometimes there’s only one singer and they’ll do both (other options include having the chorus or the public do the second part).
And I don’t think someone like Falete would consider himself a “comedy act” - straight, not much, but comedy neither (dude looks like a lady in faralaes).
If you can put yourself into the mindset of that time period, then despite not having any gendered pronouns or nouns, Aretha’s “Respect” is clearly more about a man’s complaint (as Otis Redding’s original was) than a woman’s.
Seems like the classic example of the OP to me.
When Miley Cyrus sang “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” on the SNL 40th Anniversary special, she didn’t change the gender. No idea if she ever sang it on an album. She nailed it.
Lots of guys have covered Jolene in a non-comedy way.
These are all men singing songs originally by women:
“…Baby One More Time” by Fountains of Wayne, and by Travis
“99 Red Balloons” by Angry Salad
“Dancing Barefoot” by U2
“Don’t Let Go” by Deepfield
“Fuck and Run” by Cassettes Won’t Listen
“I Will Survive” by Cake
“Landslide” by the Smashing Pumpkins
“The Metro” by System of a Down
“Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince
"Poker Face" by You Me At Six
“Possession” by Evans Blue
“Running Up That Hill” by Placebo
“Since U Been Gone” by Tokyo Police Club
"Someone Like You" by David Nail
“Tainted Love” by Soft Cell (I bet you knew this one…)
“Toxic” by Local H
“Walking With a Ghost” by The White Stripes
And under the category of sorta…
“Fast Car” as a duet by Boyce Avenue & Kina Grannis
Anya Marina with T.I.‘s “Whatever You Like”. Thought for sure Mason Jennings’ “Duluth” was a cover but, after a bit of research, not so.
Rufus Wainwright does a pretty good cover of the Man That Got Away.
How about a NON-cover song that DOES change gender? – Beloved Wife by Natalie Merchant is sung from the POV of a man. And for that matter, so is the 10,000 Maniacs song “Poison in the Well” (lyrics specifically mention “But I drank that water for years with my wife and my children…”
In The Lilly of the West, she also sings about falling in love with Flora from Louisville, then watching Flora betray her for another man, then killing that man in a jealous rage.
During Roger Waters Live in Berlin The Wall she sings Mother backed up by The Band. She did not change the gender of the lyrics.