Warren Zevon’s version of which one? I’m not too familiar with his music.
I have that album. 22 versions, though.
The Money or the Gun was an Australian comedy documentary show from the late '80s, which featured in every episode a cover of Stairway, from fairly straight versions in other genres to a spoken word version and a performance art piece. It works startlingly well as a Doors song.
Other than that, according to my Iphone I’ve got six covers of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, five of Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (a Man After Midnight), Walk This Way, Ace of Spades and …Baby One More Time. I may have more versions of some of them, but they’re the ones I felt were worth digitising.
Wild Horses by The Sundays.
I have 42 different recordings of “Over the Rainbow” . . . including the original from The Wizard of Oz, plus eight covers by Judy Garland herself. My favorite is by Mandy Patinkin, who is the only artist to express anger, that fucking birds can get there, but he can’t.
Covers on my iPod
“Fields of Gold”-Eva Cassidy (Sting)
“Give a Little Bit”-Goo Goo Dolls (Supertramp)
“With a Little Help From My Friends”-Joe Cocker (Beatles)
Warren Zevon did a cover of Knockin On Heaven’s Door, right before he died.
In 1984/1985 there were three* different songs released, all called The Power Of Love. One, my favourite, was by UK band “Frankie Goes To Hollywood”, one was by “Huey Lewis and the News” to tie in with Back to the Future, and one was by Jennifer Rush. But in regards to the OP, the Jennifer Rush song was then successfully covered by both Laura Branigan and Celine Dion.
*Edited to add: Apparently there was also a fourth one by Charley Pride, but I don’t know that one.
Although I tend to be the sort to try to find the version of a song I like best and leave it at that, doing this exercise showed me that there are a number of cases where I do actually have more than one version of the same song, though sometimes it’s a variant by the same artist.
That said, the winner for most versions of the same song in my catalog goes to “Brazil” with 4 versions: Chester and Lester, Cornelius, Pink Martini, and 8½ Souvenirs. In my example, the songs that get more versions tend to be from the pre-rock era: blues standards, folk standards, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, that sort of thing.
In a semi-related note, it was every bit as common for me to have different songs with the same title as multiple versions of the same song — tie for 3 by “One of These Days” (Campter Van Beethoven, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd) and “The Show Must Go On” (PInk Floyd, Three Dog Night, The Real Tuesday Weld)
You may want to start here. The Beatnix’ version is hilarious
It’s on The Wind, his last album.
I have burned a CD of 15 different artists doing “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again.” I’m feeling much better now, thanks for asking.
The biggest one I have seen is a torrent of 333 versions of “House of the Rising Sun”.
Nick Cave managed to rock out on the former, and Judy Henske does a fine turn on the latter.
I think I’ve said this before, but I have:
36 versions of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, 33 of those are not by Joy Division (wait, Nick Cave did this too? A-hunting I go)
5 versions of “Ceremony”, 4 not Joy Divison, 3 not JD or New Order
10 versions of “Where is My Mind?”, 9 not by Pixies
4 versions of “Famous Blue Raincoat”, 3 not by Leonard Cohen, have Cave’s covers of “Avalanche” (1 from first album, 1 live, 1 Cohen) and “Dress Rehearsal Rag.” An a bunch more from the live tribute album
The rest are all 2 or fewer copies. I am not counting the same song recorded by a different band/some of the same people.
“Stagger Lee/Stack-O-Lee” has umpteen versions and variations; so many that it seems a requirement to modify it if you’re going to cover it.
It is hard to imagine that the song Hallelujah has yet to be mentioned. It has been recorded by more than 300 different artists since 1991.
…and one of those was pretty good.
Leonard Cohen is a great artist to cover. Everyone seems to be able to perform his stuff more imaginatively than he did, but Hallelujah got definitively covered at the first go and I haven’t heard a distinctive version since. Most of the difference seems to be over whether you use the biblical or the secular standard set of verses.
Does anyone know if there’s a recorded version using all 80-odd verses?
I clearly need to do some catching up…I only have the versions by Johnny Cash and by The Outlaws.
A couple of others which I have:
Five versions of “Do Ya”:
- The Move (the original)
- Electric Light Orchestra (the version everyone knows)
- Utopia
- Ace Frehley
- Electric Light Orchestra (2012 re-recording, essentially a Jeff Lynne solo effort)
Three versions of “Crying”:
- Roy Orbison
- Roy Orbison and k.d. lang
- Don McLean
Two versions of “You Shook Me All Night Long”:
AC/DC
Melissa Etheridge
Two versions of “Refugee”:
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
- Melissa Etheridge
A long time ago another doper linked me to one of my favorite covers : Wind Beneath My Wings covered by Scandinavian Metal band Sonata Artica. It rocks.
You need this version.
…
Downtown Train by Tom Waits
Covered by:
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Bob Seger
Rod Stewart
Patty Smyth
Least to most offensive, in my opinion. Actually, I don’t find the Carpenter version offensive, just lacking. I’m sure it’s been covered by many others, but none have done justice to the original. Rod Stewart gets special hate for getting more recognition for his shitty version than Waits ever got, but as a Tom Waits fan I’m not exactly objective.
Edit: I don’t have any of the covers in my personal storage, so maybe I’m missing the point of this thread.
If you allow for standards in jazz or folk music it gets sort of ridiculous. St. Louis Blues has probably been recorded thousands of times, as has All the Things You Are, Stack-O-Lee and Barbara Allen. It’s more interesting when you stick to songs that are associated with particular performers.
Here are a couple that I think are notable:
Grazing in the Grass was originally written and recorded as an instrumental by Hugh Masakela, then later recorded with lyrics by The Friends of Distinction. Other artists who recorded it include Stevie Wonder and Chet Atkins (is there anything he didn’t record?).
Vince Guaraldi had a hit in 1963 with Cast Your Fate to the Wind. The British pop group Sounds Orchestral had their own hit with it in 1965. It has been recorded by many others, including Johnny Rivers, Earl Klugh, George Benson and Chet Atkins (who?).