Which of your favourite songs have been ruined by cover versions?

[Yourinmyspot]

For me it’s Leona Lewis’s version of Run by Snow Patrol, I love that song but hate her version of it.

@FelicityFlops

Without Out - cover by Mariah Carey is dreadful. Give me the Harry Nilsson version every time.

Agree. Her version is totally over the top.

@ExtremelyDelighted

A New England by Kirsty MacColl (original Billy Bragg), a brilliant song completely ruined.

I prefer the Kirsty MacColl version! I've recently had the misfortune of hearing a cover of The Ship Song by some whispery wispy woman whose name I can't remember, but I looked it up at the time and apparently Nick Cave has endorsed it and said he loves it I don't quite believe it It is DREADFUL. The original is one of my favourite ever songs.

My favourite song is Say Hello Wave Goodbye by Soft Cell and the David Gray version is an absolute abomination, both musically and because this song from 1981 is clearly describing a gay relationship at a time when they weren't exactly celebrated and Gray totally whitewashes it...honestly I could rant about it all day.

Somewhere only we know - Lily Allen

This is the one that does my head in. Not only is it drippy and saccharine, but so many people love it. Grrr. And Tom Chapman has such an amazing voice on the original.

I think a lot of the time (not always) with cover versions, you prefer whichever one you know of first. If you are old enough to remember an original version of a song and then you hear a cover, you will prefer the original. If a new song to you comes out and then someone says that it's a cover and you play the original, you won't prefer that version

But Miley Cyrus singing Doll Parts is mindblowing. I love both the original and the cover.

@MoonOnASpoon

But Miley Cyrus singing Doll Parts is mindblowing. I love both the original and the cover.

I completely forgot about this song by Hole. Didn’t know she had covered it.

Does she do a cover of Celebrity Skin too? I heard a cover of that the other day and couldn't place the voice.

Dancing in the moonlight by Toploader was murdered by Jubel a few years ago.
I had an arguement with my 6yo Dd because she was adamant that Toploader copied Jubel and wasn’t having it that in fact Mummy was alive when the original version came out

The Corrs version of Old Town. Travesty!

Phil Lynott must be turning in his grave. Radio 2 play The Corrs version and it makes me want to sling the radio down the garden

Interesting. Has anyone ever tried to do an official cover of Bohemian Rhapsody? (Apart from everyone at a some point at a party of course!)

I hope not! Ditto Mr Bluesky.

Interesting point about the version you hear first being the one you take to. I really like Bryan Ferry's version of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, which I probably heard not long after he made it in the early 70s. It was decades before I grasped it's a Dylan song and to be honest, I prefer the Bryan Ferry version. My husband knew the Dylan version in the 60s and hates the Bryan Ferry one. Takes all sorts!

Sound of Silence by Disturbed
It’s horrible
(Lots of people seem to prefer it. I am disturbed by that)

Louise Redknapp murdering Stuck In The Middle With You and Geri Halliwell "singing" Its Raining Men

Tom Jones version of Kiss. Yuk!

@Llamapolice

My favourite song is Say Hello Wave Goodbye by Soft Cell and the David Gray version is an absolute abomination, both musically and because this song from 1981 is clearly describing a gay relationship at a time when they weren't exactly celebrated and Gray totally whitewashes it...honestly I could rant about it all day.

How does this 'clearly' describe a gay relationship ?

I agree with posters who are saying you tend to prefer the version of the song you heard first .

Destiny's Child covering Samantha Sang's "Emotion" (written by the unequalled Gibb brothers) awful caterwauling assault on the eardrums!!

I actually didn't realise that the person who wrote This Flight Tonight was Joni Mitchell - it said J Mitchell on the record. Absolutely love Nazareth's version, but heard her version at a friend's house. First I had her voice and of course it didn't have the great guitar sound that Nazareth have.

So that is a case of hating the original.

Hate her voice, not had her voice!!

This is really interesting as I'm trying to write a character who performs acoustic covers of songs badly at an open mic night and was trying to think of songs that would sound utterly ridiculous slowed down. I thought it would be quite funny to try to give poignancy to the lyrics of Rachel Stephens or Girls Aloud. Any suggestions?

Say Hello Wave Goodbye talks about forbidden love in the language of a relationship with someone who's married, but given that Marc Almond is gay it's not hard to make the leap to thinking he's using socially acceptable terms of reference to talk about love between men, which was forbidden in a different sense at the time.

@JunoLunar - how about On Top of the World by the Carpenters, could be fun to have all the joy sapped out of that one

@MaudOfTheMarches

Calum Scott's version of Dancing On My Own - makes me irrationally angry.

Yes, I was about to say this one. It's so bad, it makes me cross too. Nobody could dance to that. Just because the lyrics are poignant, doesn't mean a song has to be a funeral dirge. The original is such a great track, too.

"I will always love you", a lovely Dolly Parton song, which was covered by a screeching Whitney Houston