Aerosmith - “I’m Down”
Phil Collins - “Tomorrow Never Knows”
Guadalcanal Diary - “And Your Bird Can Sing”
They also do a good “Helter Skelter.”
“With a little help from my friends” was also covered by Wet Wet Wet as a comic relief number in the 90’s
“Every Little Thing” as done by Yes
Anything from the McLemore Avenue album (covers of songs from Abbey Road) by Booker T & the MGs
Pat Benetar also covered “Helter Skelter”.
Sting has covered “A Day in the Life” in concert.
Barnes and Barnes (of “Fishheads” fame) has covered “Please Please Me”.
There’s an album This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul in which various artists cover all the songs on Rubber Soul.
U2 covers Helter Skelter on Rattle and Hum.
Kansas did a rockier version of “Eleanor Rigby”
Ray Charles - “Yesterday”
Also, Jerry Lee Lewis has a cover of “I Saw Her Standing There” on his new Last Man Standing CD.
Aretha Franklin also did a great cover of “Eleanor Rigby”
Do the covers on The Concert for George count, even though McCartney played on them?
showing age
And didn’t Mrs Miller do a couple of covers in the 60’s?
Far superior soundtrack to the Sgt. Pepper movie, IMHO!
“Tomorrow Never Knows” by Mission UK
“Tomorrow Never Knows” by Danielle Dax
both of which are excellent uniquely done covers.
Hey, Bulldog by Fanny
Nan Vernon does a wonderful cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on her album Manta Ray. I can get you the mp3 if you want.
Sheila Chandra and Monsoon do a great Indian-flavored version of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” I can get you that too.
I can get you the Siouxie tracks and the Danielle Dax track previously mentioned (yay!) too if you’re interested.
Ok, that’s just weird. Then again, she did cover Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” and it’s not too bad either.
Speaking of Kate, she performed “The Long and Winding Road” and another Beatles song I can’t remember while in Japan in 1979 (I think).
Bananarama did a pretty good version of Help! . They also did a long version in which they clowned around a bit, so I recommend the regular version.
Cheap Trick do a great spooky/menacing “Magical Mystery Tour”.
Big Daddy did a version of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (the whole album) as if it had been released in the 50’s. The cover of “Within you, Without You” as a beat poet night is actually brilliant. The whole thing is fun.
Me First and the Gimme Gimme’s have punk covers of **Strawberry Fields Forever ** and All My Loving.
Doodles Weaver – Eleanor Rigby
Bobby McFerrin – Blackbird
Michael Buble – Can’t Buy Me Love
All three are very listenable variations.
That’s a pretty good set. Mindy Smith’s version of “The Word” is nice. Fiery Furnaces’ take on “Norwegian Wood” is … well, perhaps you should just hear it yourself.
Stevie Wonder’s version of “We Can Work It Out” is great, and Otis Redding’s “Day Tripper” is quite crazed, but brilliant. Tones on Tail did a good “Day Tripper” as well.
A nice recent find is Mia Doi Todd’s “Norwegian Wood.” Slightly jazzy, but very good, with a powerful introspective quality that that song should have.
Bob Dylan’s version of “Yesterday” is not recommended.
Oasis - I am the Walrus