Tom Waits did a cover of “Heigh Ho” from Disney’s Snow White. It’s…extremely dark, without even changing the lyrics. By far the best song on a compilation album of Contemporary Singers Covering Disney Movie Songs. Couldn’t tell you the real title.
Somewhere out there is a traditional-style Indian sitar cover of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” Again, I don’t know the name of the album. A friend and I did a major audio double-take at a little Indian restaurant in NY a couple of years ago. Our waiter when questioned told us it was Ravi Shankar, which is unlikely. The closest thing I’ve ever found is this, and I don’t think that’s it. Check out a couple of the samples, though!
That’d be “Stay Awake.” Another good one off a similar album is LL Cool J doing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
The last time a thread like this came up, I tossed in the Who’s cover of the “Batman” TV series theme. “Na na na na na na na na, na na na na na na na na, Batman!”
I have Big Daddy’s Cuttin’ Their Own Groove, but when I was in college, a friend of mine made a tape copy of one of their earlier albums for me. I lost the tape at some point and I’d like to hear it again. Do either of you know where I can find some earlier Big Daddy recordings? edwino, another good cover of Ring of Fire? The Bobs and Social Distortion both do excellent covers of that song, finding another one would be very cool.
Two more to add:
The Flying Lizards cover of James Brown’s Sex Machine
The Reverend Horton Heat did a cover of the Jonny Quest Theme, and he turned it into 1:41 of scorched-earth guitar brilliance.
That is one of my favorite covers of all times. They released it on a four song cd called Songs To Make Love By. Faith No More doing a Commodores song and polka on the same album is something everyone should own.
Another one of my favorite unusual cover songs would have to be These Boots Were Made For Walking as covered by Megadeth. I was in awe the first time I heard it because although I liked the original, Megadeth added that special something that only they can do.
Dammit, while I was typing I started thinking of all kinds of great covers so I am just going to list a couple or I will be here all day:
Castles Made of Sand/Little Wing- Tuck & Patti
At Last- Stevie Nicks
Summer Breeze- Type O Negative
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven- Deborah Cox
Bauhaus did a dark, sarcastic version of Norman Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit in the Sky’ which is either disturbing, or hilarious, depending.
The Pogues did a spanish language version of ‘Secret Agent Man’ called ‘Hombre Secreto’ which is also very funny. I think you can find it on the ‘Repo Man’ soundtrack.
If “WHY GOD WHY?” covers count as “unusual”, I’ll throw in “Satisfaction” and “I Love Rock and Roll” as covered by Britney Spears. WHY? :eek:
David Bowie’s cover of The Who’s “Pictures of Lily” can only be justified as an exercise in self-parody, so I really, really hope that’s what he was going for. It’s about twice as long as the original thanks to being played verrrrrrry slooooooowly, and the vocals sound more like the work of a cheesy David Bowie impersonator than the man himself.
Aside from their cover of the “Batman” theme already mentioned, the early Who also covered Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”!
Yo La Tengo did a pretty funny cover of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” with Mondegreen lyrics (that is, they sing it like someone who doesn’t really know the words but it making their best guess).
I was at a bar last weekend where they had satellite radio - they played a live cover of Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” by Travis that was actually quite listenable. I was impressed.
Toad the Wet Sprocket covered Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite” a few years back and turned it into this mellow, acoustic-y Dylan type thing (!) I have to say, it was brilliant. They actually made a Kiss song sound poignant.
The Holly Cole Trio made an entire album of Tom Waits covers, called “Temptation”. Absolutely beautiful album that I’m going to dig out and listen to as soon as I get home.
And “Stay Awake” has a lot of other wonderful covers, too. Bonnir Raits’ version of “Baby Mine” from Dumbo makes me cry every time I hear it. “Castle in Spain” by Buster Poindexter is a killer, too, but I forget what Disney movie it’s from.
