Really? It has a sorta Taylor Swift vibe to it.
No disrespect to the Beatles but I went with Joe’s version (as long as I don’t have to watch him sing it - the comment above about his spasmodic performance is well-made).
Also, I’m adding “Dear Prudence” by Siouxsie and the Banshees to the list of preferred Beatles covers.
One of my favorite Beatles covers is Richie Havens’ Here Comes The Sun. I won’t call it ‘better’ than the original, but I like how it makes me feel more than the original.
Also, come on man, dial it back a notch. Stop making people’s personal opinions on music an excuse to attack them.
Not an attack, just a reasonable conclusion. Don’t recall that the person said they were or weren’t. But it sounded like a beatle-phobe. It was a list of almost all of the recent high profile beatles covers. It’s not a crime not to be a fan.
That’s a thing? Like, in the DSM?
I seem to recall from other threads that Little Nemo likes the Beatles just fine. (ETA: And double checking with a forum search, yes, he calls them “the best musical entity of the modern era.”) His choices are reasonable ones. I’d have a hard time saying any version is “better,” but the ones I’ve heard from that list (which is most of them) are solid covers at least as good as the Beatles. I would also add the Carpenters version of “Ticket to Ride” as a worthy cover. I could easily see how a Beatles fan might call any one of those better than the original. Look, I love the Beatles and I prefer Cocker’s version to the Beatles version of “With a Little Help…” when heard on its own, but in the album context, the Beatles song works. People have different opinions, you know?
It was simply a list of recent covers, and a long one that sounded like a buckshot approach, rather than discerning. What if you asked me what movies were better than the Godfather and I listed 15 movies made this decade? There is a higher bar to reach, and if it is that common then the implication is that the Beatles weren’t good recording artists. Originality counts for me and I can hear it, but I was a contemporaneous Beatles fan. That means I admit I am very emotionally invested. But it also means I heard it all come out in time as it happened. I’m sure it’s different when you are raised on classic rock or alt with no memory of that.
The whole music scene as it evolved came out of the Beatles musical innovations, talent, chemistry, production values, ingenuity and soul. That’s the reason people do these covers. Like English artists? The Beatles brought them over here for you. Might have happened eventually, but certainly not like it did.
I think you take the Beats for granted by scattering your love over all the covers, without a thought to the context. If you say that Cocker is great and the Beatles are corny, you just don’t see that The Beatles are your Daddy. They were Joes Daddy. He knew that. Christ in a lot of ways they were Dylans Daddy.
To me WALHFMF is so beautiful, moving, emotionally right, in the original, that a debate about whether the classic rock version is better is absurd. That song was something that turned on the world. It was a thematic keystone in a piece that was heard universally over humanity. For a whole summer. To the point where bushmen in Africa knew who they were eventually. That didn’t happen to corny music. It didn’t happen to Joe Cocker (RIP, much love and great too “Put out the light”).
That is why I used the word myopic. You just trying to get a rise out of me?
Good lord, I’m just talking music, not trying to get a rise out of anyone.
Joe Cocker. He delivers a lot more soul and feeling than the Beatles.
Though I hesitate to hijack this thread further, I just want to point out to you that preferring covers over the original has nothing to do with appreciating or not appreciating the context and importance of the Beatles. One can like a cover version for any reason he or she wants, while still agreeing that the original is an important progenitor, more innovative, or whatever else.
Of course you can think anything you want. My point is that I can’t imagine preferring something when it is less important, less innovative and less original. But I can’t argue with one who says that isn’t the case for them. It says something about the population of SD to me. That’s about it.
This is a popularity vote between artistic works, a platform of opinions, and mine is that there has never been a Beatles cover surpassing the original. (Nobody mentioned Stevie Wonder We can work it out? Golden intro, but better? Maybe equal at best) To me, to think that every time someone does one it’s better, or that is has been done 15 or 20 times, is a sign that someone isn’t hearing what was there in the first place driving the artist to cover the beatles. You are preferring the one who has not composed the work. It sounds like a lot of internet clawdown to me. It’s been known to happen.
The most important thing to me is the song, and the composer. Production, playing, Singing are all runners up; and emotive singing is not more soulful or less soulful. It can be dreadful. Covers have a high bar, above an already high bar, for me anyway. Carry on Cockers!
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Cocker’s version isn’t a straight cover of the Beatles’ song. It’s very heavily rearranged, to the point it became something else. It is fair to compare the versions and judge whether the changes helped or hurt. And in that comparison, Paul’s lyrics are the least changed, and not the focus of comparison. So it does come down to musicianship.
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Most of us are just comparing these two recordings. It’s a cheat to come in and say that the Beatles are better because they’re so important in general. Preferring Cocker’s version of one song isn’t meant as a slam to the Beatles’ vast body of work.
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Hi Ringo! We still love you.
I prefer the Beatles’ version by a long way. The “Biii-leeey-Sheeeears!”, the guitar lead-in, the melodic base, the deadpan tone to it. Joe Cocker’s version was, as others have pointed out, basically a different song, and a bit elaborate for my tastes. It might just be that I grew up with the Ringo version, but I think that it’s meant to be a friendly, lighthearted ditty, not some melancholy bare-your-soul moment. It’s like doing an emotional version of “Martha My Dear”.
While it’s not a Beatles’ song, Regina Spektor’s cover of “Real Love” floored me. But that’s not really fair, as John never got to record it properly.
Your third point is well taken.
Your first point eludes me. It does come down to more than musicianship: Originality, feel, arrangement, phrasing, production values, background vox, ambience, the statement of it, not to mention that (in our case) the melody is altered rhythmically (It does not swing!). It’s art after all. This is the Beatles “importance.” concretely demonstrated, not cited to claim superiority.
My only point is that if one assumes that some changes are going to “help” a Beatles song, after lennon, mccartney, martin and the others got done creating it, and that this is readily and frequently done by many others, then I find it hard to imagine one is that enthusiastic about the Beatles. Hence: “Not a fan.” Probably one who just heard them in the mix as one of the older entries on a classic rock playlist. To me that’s a historical distortion. It’s your right completely to be there. But I can’t talk to music about you…
Cock On!!
I’m probably going to regret continuing this conversation, but is there even a single cover on Nemo’s list from this decade? Or even last decade? I think the most recent song I see is Eliot Smith’s from 1999, and we got Fats Domino and Hendrix from the 60s. It’s a pretty curated list spanning a good time period, not “recent covers.”
While I agree the song works well in the album which in itself should be taken as a singular work of art I think Joe Cocker made it a fabulous single in the same way Hendrix did with “All Along the Watch Tower”. It’s iconic rock at it’s best. It would be a huge loss if it were never made.
I will forever be amazed at the talent of the Beatles as well as the soul of Joe Cocker.
Shouldn’t have said “recent” probably. I saw Johnny Cash, Elliot Smith, and the Breeders and to me those are the most prominent recent covers that are credible, as well as every other older cover I could think of offhand (except stevie). My ‘recent’ is different than some. It seemed like just a list of all of them without a filter or an aim. Elliot Smiths was really just a recreation, a studio feat by Elliot. I thought anyone would have to be jiving to say it was better. Not the list of a beatles lover though. Do you think so? Never mind.
Can’t Nemo speak for himself? He might just have said.“OK check.”
No probs here. I’m just a beatles guy with time on my hands. I’m emotionally invested.
Cocker don’t swing and lost the melody though…
Cock Out!
My thoughts exactly.
Hah! And with that you lost whatever credibility I was willing to toss your way.
As much as I deny some of drag dog’s points, e. g. that you had to be there to really get the Beatles or that you’re not appreciating the Beatles enough when you probably like some of their covers better, he has a point here. Without the Beatles, Dylan had never gone electric, and that was one of the most important moves of his career. But of course the influence was mutual; without Dylan, everything from A Hard Day’s Night onward would’ve sounded very different.