In the movie The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) get stuck performing in a country & western bar and sing the only two C&W songs they know the words to; the theme from “Rawhide” and “Stand By Your Man”.
Bette Midler’s cover of “When A Man Loves A Woman” seemed to ignore the fact that what the song was really saying was that a woman make a man’s life miserable.
Personally, I think that the singer should always use singer-appropriate pronouns. After all, the idea is that the singer is purportedly addressing his or her feelings to a loved one (never mind the fact that it’s all a show). The only exception is when you have a mixed sex (or orientation) band, in which case the backup singers should match to the lead singer.
I think sometimes yes, sometimes no.
On the radio this morning I heard the Counting Crows’ cover of Big Yellow Taxi, in which they sing:
I think that gender change makes the cover work much better than if they had stuck with “took away my old man.”
On the other hand, sometimes it just wouldn’t work at all to alter the gender of the lyrics. It’s a case by case basis, IMHO.
I tried unsuccessfully to find the artist, but back in the late 60’s, some guy like Jack Jones or Steve Lawrence or the like did a version of “I Say a Little Prayer.” It would seem Burt Bachrach/Hal David had a woman (Diane KIng, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin) in mind when they wrote the song: “The moment I wake up/before I put on my make up/I say a little prayer for you. I’m combing my hair now/and wondering what dress to wear now…”
Recasting it with lyrics from a male point of view was just plain stupid! I’ve googled like crazy, and cannot find those lyrics, but trust me - they were awful!
Didn’t someone sing Big Yellow Taxi as “took my lover away”? Maybe Tracy Chapman?
I agree with Eonwe, it’s a case by case thing. I think it could even be done well either way with the same song. A lot depends on how it’s sung.
That male version of “I’ve never been to me” is just incredible. Especially since it’s a pushy beggar trying to talk to the guy. Also, according to that website, “…written with Robert Shaw’s character from JAWS as its inspiration and with a male lyric.”
Dylan’s version of House of the Rising Sun, left intact on his first album, is powerful and fantastic. He makes no apologies, he just does it. The Animals version, with the girl changed to boy, makes no damn sense. (Yes I know we’ve had a thread on this.)
Janis Joplin’s version of Me and Bobby McGee (I kept typing Bibi, must be the Israeli version 
) seems subtly wrong to me - guy singing the blues while girl plays the harmonica.
On the CBC I heard a radio show that had songwriters performing their hits acoustically. One of them was a fellow who claimed (I say claimed because all the writing credits I have found indicate “Till Tuesday” wrote the song) to have written “Voices Carry”. He was pretty clearly gay, and his acoustic version just blew me away. It changed the meaning of the song and added a lot more depth to lines like “He wants me, but only part of the time” and “Hush hush darling, she might overhear”. Sadly I’ve never been able to track down a recording.
I don’t know yet what they do with the pronouns, but I’m trying to hunt down some Lez Zeppelin. They don’t appear on itunes, to my frustration. I’ll report back, and write off my expenses as anthropologic musicology studies.
I feel that today’s world would be far more interesting had Frank Sinatra decided to do a cover of Sheena Easton’s “Sugar Walls”.
With all the high profile scandals of teachers having affairs with their male students, I’m suprised that a woman hasn’t covered Don’t Stand So Close to Me. I’m thinking, Shania Twain should do that.
One Christmas season I was driving around when “Santa Baby” came onto the radio, and this time it was being sang by a male vocalist.
Ya know, the song becomes so much more bizzare when you have a dude trying to seduce Old Saint Nick
Then there’s “A Girl Named Sue”, the remake of the Johnny Cash hit “A Boy Named Sue”. Loses all the spice of the original, when sung by a woman…
Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I’d roam from town to town to hide my shame.
But I made me a vow to the moon and stars
That I’d search the honky-tonks and bars
And kill the man that give me that awful name. […]
He said: “Now you just fought one hell of a fight
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me, before I die,
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
Cause I’m the son-of-a-bitch that named you ‘Sue.’”
*
Nitpick: They changed the first line too, to accomodate the line:
*Late last night, I heard the screen door sway
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away
[/quote]
/huge Counting Crows geek who is very glad he has the first printing of Hard Candy WITHOUT Vanessa Carleton sounding like a drunk two year old tacked on top of the Big Yellow Taxi vocals.
Nitpick: They changed the first line too, to accomodate the line:
Late last night, I heard the screen door sway
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away
/huge Counting Crows geek who is very glad he has the first printing of Hard Candy WITHOUT Vanessa Carleton sounding like a drunk two year old tacked on top of the Big Yellow Taxi vocals.
(Sorry if this doubleposts. I tried to stop before it submitted to fix coding)
Holly Cole changed the pronouns in her fantastic cover of “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and I didn’t mind at all.
In the mid 1990s a British group called Gene - purveyors of decent melancholy indie guitar pop and harshly derided for attempting to rip off The Smiths at every turn - recorded a live cover of I Say A Little Prayer, with the same lyrics (“before I put on my makeup”, and so on). I personally think it’s an excellent cover version.
“My Friend Fernando” has been done by both Abba and Frank Sinatra. I don’t think they changed any words. When the female lead of Abba sings it, it’s a woman talking to an old lover. When Sinatra sings it, he’s reminiscing with an old war buddy. I like both versions.
When Marilyn Manson covered Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”, I didn’t notice any changes in the words. Although I must say, Annie Lennox looked much better in a suit, than Marilyn Manson does in a dress.
I don’t know about the others, but Johnny Mathis did it, and the lyrics were “The moment I get up, before I can shave and set up . . . .” Awful.
OTOH, one of my favorite CDs is “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man.” It’s a collection of songs recorded in the late '20s to early '30s, sung by men, to men, e.g. “The Man I Love” and “He’s My Secret Passion.” Apparently at that time it was the convention for singers not to change pronouns, and it wasn’t thought of as gay at all.
How about a brother & sister duet (who, AFAIK, are the oritinal artists–they have writing credits) singing about giving their steady girl a ride in a hot rod?
As I understand it, The Beach Boys’ FUN, FUN, FUN was originally male but someone thought it a bit “gay” so it became female.
And we’ll have fun fun fun now that daddy took the t-bird away