Cover versions of songs

[hangrylady]

Just a lighthearted musing! I was listening to the radio earlier and they played Baby Can I Hold You by Boyzone. An absolute abomination when compared to the original by Tracy Chapman. The only example of a cover that I think is better than the original is Only You by Yazoo, which is far superior to the weird Flying Pickets version. Can anyone think of any more songs where the cover is better than the original?

Someone upthread didn't like Stevie Wonder's cover of Superstition - but this was the original version.

Meanwhile, with my "Hits you didn't know were covers" hat on:

(Simply) The Best - Tina Turner's cover easily knocks out Bonnie Tyler's original,

No More "I Love You"s - Annie Lennox's version is the cover of the original by The Lover Speaks,

Numerous old ska and reggae numbers whose covers were bigger hits than the originals, including:

• The Tide Is High - Blondie
• Oh Carolina - Shaggy
• I'm Still In Love With You, Girl - Sean Paul (and also the basis of Uptown Top Ranking by Althea and Donna)

@Muzzyarker YES!!! Goosebumps right there!

Oh I forgot one:

Josef Savlat’s cover of Diamonds.

@Mochudubh

Practically any cover of Bob Dylan is better than the original in my opinion.

I was going to say this - but all of them not just practically all! Great songwriter, awful singer.

Imelda May also does a great cover of Tainted love

I’m a huge fan of this version of Heart Shaped Box by Asgeir Trausti.

I’m not sure if it’s better than the original but it’s one of the first songs I think of when people talk about great covers.

Also love some of the others mentioned here, but this is one that I don’t think has come up yet.

Nirvana ‘Lake of Fire’. Though the original does have a certain something.

@notacooldad

Feeling Good by Muse is the best version The best version for me is by Joe Bonamasa.

I hadn’t realised that Joe covered this, have just looked it up and agree it’s not bad at all, though also love the Muse version.

Julia Jacklin's cover of Someday by The Strokes.

@Allhailzoidberg

Hurt by Johnny Cash.

I love the original by NIN but the Cash version is such a great take on it, almost like a new song.

Absolutely

Johnny Cash turns Hurt into a totally different song with identical words.

The original is a tale of heroin addiction, Johnny Cashs version is the reflection of a life.

Couple the reworking with the stage of his life and how quickly he passed after June, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Hurt was recorded before she died and to read more into the performance.

This shows how context placed onto a particular version of a song can change its ‘meaning’. Any one song can have numerous interpretations from the rearrangement of a cover version to what we may know or think of the writer / performer and then to how and when we experienced it. It may have its own meaning to us, or it might trigger memories that invoke our personal ‘meaning’ to a song

I love to listen to numerous versions of songs and the many ways they can be reinterpreted into an arrangement or just the style or voice of the performer.
Our sense of the ‘best’ is strongly influenced by all the factors that can effect our memory or experience - and the ‘right’ version is often the one we first hear

I’ll be looking at everyone’s comments and choices in the rest of the posts

@GoFishandChips

This is probably blasphemy to some, but I love Slow Moving Millie version of Please Let Me Get What I Want far more than the The Smiths version.

I accept your evaluation of Slow Moving Millie’s version

Both are excellent versions

I actually love the Scissor Sisters version of Comfortably Numb. So completely different to the original.

* I think Too close by Blue is better than the version by Next.*

^I agree

Tricky - Black Steel
Spanky Wilson - Sunshine of your love

Where Did You Sleep Last Night and The Man Who Sold The World from Nirvana Unplugged and I Fought The Law by the Clash for me

^ JuliaSways

myBumJuiceSmellsLikeRoses
I actually love the Scissor Sisters version of Comfortably Numb. So completely different to the original.
An abomination! I was livid when I first heard it 😂

^
I’m fine with that.

There’s only one cover version of a song that offends me.
It offended me so much that I left the country for the week that it came out and I have never heard it in my life, and intend that to continue

Another artist covered it after that, which I dislike, but I appreciate it as a cover of an early cover.

I almost made a tragic mistake once when I told a friend this and named the song & offending artist. Luckily due to alcohol and her not having heard of that artist she suddenly caught on to the potential power over me if she could remember and asked me to repeat the name. I’m not stupid enough to let it slip twice

The original came from the 60s from a major artist, and was at a time when everyone was covering everyone else.
So at some point in time after the 60s there is a cover version that deserves to be forgotten and another cover version by a better known artist that some lovers of the original will feel is bad, but is actually a very good cover of an ‘original cover’

@hangrylady

I'd also like to add Take That's version of Could it be Magic, although my 14 year old obsession with Robbie Williams may have influenced me! I also prefer Leona Lewis' version of Snow Patrol's Run

Yes to Take That!

PS to add to my leaving the country to avoid hearing a song, there was almost a moment …..

I was in France by the coast, sat on the windowsill of a hotel room above a bar when a car stopped at the junction below had its radio tuned to BBC1 as the charts were playing, I heard the artists name just in time to dive back in the room and slam shut the window

I’ve told my friend that I may write the name of the offending artist and song in my will for her to allow her the last laugh of playing to me when I can no longer hear

Cocteau Twins; Frosty the Snowman
Tori Amos; Angie
Martika; I Feel The Earth Move
Fugees; Killing Me Softly

I loved the Harriet version of Reach For the Stars, unlike a pp.

It's a bit "out there" but Blue Man groups and Venus Hum's live version of Donna Summer's "I feel love" is flipping amazing.

It starts at around 2mins 39 in this video.

WARNIG It contains a lot of strobe lighting and an awesome dress.

Should read WARNING not the stupid word I typed....sorry.

"Dusty Springfield Anyone Who Had a Heart better than Cilla". Yes to this. Mind you, Dusty Springfield was absolutely amazing. I admired Cilla Black but she was an average singer.

Cilla's voice was very powerful.... but not at all pleasant-sounding. If I'm being tactful, I would say her voice was every bit as lovely as she was....

Johnny Cash's version of In My Life was way better than the original by The Beatles. Apart from the much better, slower arrangement, John and Paul were just far too young to sing a song like that. As an autobiographical reflection, it made far more sense for a much older person to sing - looking back on his life; rather than two young men who had/should have had most of their adult lives still ahead of them.

In contrast, I really love Johnny's version of We'll Meet Again, but I think that, although Vera Lynn was young when she sang it, in the context of the war and the tragic reality that a lot of her contemporaries were clearly not going to survive to old age, I think her version was just as poignant and beautiful within a slightly different backdrop.

Lots of love here for Placebo’s version of Running Up That Hill but I preferred Will Young’s version.

Manic Street Preachers did a heartbreaking cover of Bright Eyes in the 90s - was just a live recording I think. I don’t know if it’s a blinding cover version or just a reliving of the childhood trauma of watching Watership Down every Easter.

No disrespect to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, because it’s one of my all time favourite songs, but there’s been some beautiful covers, including Cassandra Wilson and Tuck and Patti (the singer sounds like Tracey Chapman and it’s often been wrongly attributed to her). Also a soft spot for the version they dance to in Strictly Ballroom.

Bit of a niche one but Cold Years have a cover of good as hell that’s just phenomenal.

And now I’m off to read everyone else’s!

I’ve though of more!

The Gaslight Athens version of changing of the guards.
Lana Del Rey’s version of Chelsea hotel number 2.
Greenday’s I fought the law.
Cage The Elephant’s whole wide world.

*Anthem! Not Athens!