Taking Cover
Posted at 5:20 AM on May 20, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(39 Comments)
Here's a fresh e-mail from an old friend:
Dear Mr. Connelly,Well, the school year is almost over and my big idea of creating a "Bubby's Homework Club" so your listeners could work with me on my school assignments never really got off the ground, mostly because of timing. I found out if you're going to ask for help, you have to start early enough so people will actually have the time to help you. Why isn't your show on later? It wouldn't have to be every night - just weeknights right before my homework is due.
There is one assignment coming up in Mr. Boozenporn's English class where I do have kind of a head start because the topic of it is so freaking me out. I'm supposed to write this persuasive essay saying why summer vacation should be done away with in favor of year-round school. Just thinking about it is making me a little bit sick to my stomach, and I'm thinking about it all the time.
I can't even come up with one good sentence about why we should do it. Not to mention 1,000 words. That's a lot.
Anyway, there's this guy, Josh, who is one of my Facebook friends. He goes to a different school and I was telling him about this assignment and he said his class had to do something like it and he saved his paper. And he'll sell it to me for twenty five bucks!
I know that's not right. But Josh says it's not stealing 'cause I'm paying for it. And when I go in and change a few words around, it'll be like music and I'll make it my own, like I'm "covering" a song that somebody else wrote. Musicians do it all the time. And Mr. Boozenporn did say once that writing is like art, sort of.
I know it'll be a good essay, 'cause Josh is real persuasive. I just have to come up with the twenty five bucks. And one other useful thing would be a note from you saying how normal it is for "cover" songs to be done, just in case I need to do some quick explaining.
Please?
Your friend,
Bubby Spamden
I told Bubby I couldn't endorse his plan or provide "cover" for his academic plagiarism. A good cover song does a lot more than "change a few words", as Josh suggests. But I did forward this link to Bubby, which was sent to me by Elinor, of a list of artists and the different songs they've covered.
It does raise the question - do you have any favorite cover songs?
Comments (39)
How about Peter Mayer doing Moon River? I have always sung that song as a lullaby to my boys, and I think his version is wonderfully heartfelt.
cool site - thanks for sharing Elinor and Dale! i learned that Linda Ronstadt was the most-listed singer to cover Warren Zevon songs. when she sings "Poor Pitiful Me" it's a whole different song with different meaning than when Warren sang it. some cover songs are better than the original artist - some worse. only Warren can sing "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and make it believable for me. even (and i haven't heard this one) Hank Williams, Jr. wouldn't do it. i think my favorite cover is The Blind Boys' version of Richard Thompson's "The Dimming of the Day."
don't do it Bubby
so early for thought, i forgot: i love the Muppets covering almost anything
I think Bubby can use the paper as long as he puts Josh's name on it.
In turn-about I like listening to the Beatles cover songs like "Til there was you" from "The Music Man"
Heartlanders (at least in the south of MN) enjoy the day plaigarized from Arizona
Prudence Johson has a recording of Greg Brown songs that I like. Also, there are various projects by Connie Evingson including her tribute to Peggy Lee which I like.
Good morning, Heartlanders!
A great topic this morning. Here are a few of my favorite covers:
Claudia Lennear - "Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky" (on her only solo album, "Phew!")
R.L. Burnside - "Everything Is Broken"
Johnny Rivers - "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Drifters - "Save the Last Dance for Me"
The great thing about Radio Heartland is that I'm always hearing more covers I like.
Did you know that "Till There Was You" was the only cover the Beatles ever did from a Broadway musical?
Henrik, I didn't know that about the Beatles and "'Til There Was You', but it doesn't surprise me.
Too bad. I'd like to hear The Beatles do "Ya Got Trouble" or "Iowa Stubborn".
Good morning, all.
What a clever way to bring up the topic of songs covered by various artists! I'll be visiting this blog entry later today for sure to see what other songs were listed here by other listeners. Thanks for playing Kris Delmhorst's cover of Leonard Cohen's musical adaption of the Lord Byron poem! I'm going to list some other covers I like, too, just to add them to the comments list.
Tom Waits "Long Way Home" sung by Norah Jones
Tom Waits "Heartattack & Vine" sung by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Greg Brown "Lately" sung by Lucinda Williams
Everly Brothers "Sleepless Nights" by Gram Parsons
The Beatles "Got to Get You into My Life done by Earth, Wind, and Fire
An interesting topic. When I was a little girl in the 50's there was a strong color line separating radio stations. One of the signs that a song was a Big Hit was that it would be played by all the radio stations, no matter the race of the artist. One example of a song crossing over from the black stations might be Percy Jackson's "When a Man Loves a Woman."Or some of the early James Brown songs. They were so popular that they 'crossed-over' to the white rock and roll stations. One of the reasons to do a cover was to be able to expose a wider audience to (and make a lot of money from) a song that they might not hear due to the 'segregation' of music stations.
Got either of the two above artists' songs in the archives, Dale and Mike?
Oops - not Percy Jackson, Percy Sledge sang "When A Man Loves Woman." Sorry!
A few of my favorite "covers":
Judy Collins' versions of Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell songs
Jennifer Warnes doing Cohen songs, especially "Ballad of the Runaway Horse" with Rob Wasserman
I'm sure there are more, but...well, as warm as it is in the Cities and south, it is cold up here in the north. I don't think it got above 44 degrees yesterday with a fierce east wind off the Lake. Today, no wind and promises of above 70.
Thanks for honeybee songs...the bees should be climbing out of their hive beds any hour now.
Covers - love em!
Dixie Chicks - Landslide, Rainbow Connection
Alison Krauss - I Will
Johnny Cash and June Carter - It Ain't Me Babe
Michael Stipe - Brandy, You're a Fine Girl
Indigo Girls - Midnight Train to Georgia
Another favorite is, Everyday I Write the Book, by I don't know who, but I hear it on RH.
Moon River by Peter Mayer was lovely - thanks Nancy!
Bubby should do the right thing, but Mr. Boozenporn is a nitwit to dictate the side of the debate the students have to write about. The only way I could write that paper would be to use satire. Does Bubby know how to do that?
Act Naturally is one other Beatles cover that Ringo sings. I just double checked on Wikipedia to make sure and I found this......
In 1989, Owens and Starr, the two most famous singers of "Act Naturally," teamed up for a brand-new version, also creating a lighthearted music video for it, with them playing bumbling versions of themselves playing cowboys in a western being filmed.
That would be fun to see.....I must youtube it later to see if it's available.
There are a lot of really good covers - but one that sticks out for its surprise factor is Johnny Cash's cover of "Personal Jesus" originally by Depeche Mode. I liked the original, but Johnny made it his own - and it's fabulous.
Dale & Elinore,
Very cool site......I could spend hours yikes it's never ending. My 10 minute morning break is over!
Back to work......
I Love covers of my faves like Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell. Do you have John Hammond Jr "Wicked Grin" in the library? It's a disc of all Tom Waits covers. If it's there could you play Shore Leave?
I would like to nominate Bruce Springsteen for his version of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" - I think I read somewhere that he sang it at his wedding because his wife is from New Jersey;
Nana Mouskouri for "Farewell Angelina", which seems to gain something intangible when sung in French;
Nikki and the Ruemates for Janis Joplin's "Down on Me";
Linda Ronstadt for Elvis Costello's "Alison" and Warren Zevon's "Mohammed's Radio" (thanks Barb for jogging my memory);
and in the Broadway musical division, Dennis Spears for "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup".
I think I could do a top 100 list on this topic, but maybe this is enough for a start.
Ok, I'm ruined for work today! Mulling covers for certain... That distraction on top of my utterly blank mind this morning spells trouble, but c'est la vie...
Just thought of a cover played many moons ago on the Morning Show that made me laugh out loud - it was silly and wonderful all at once: a cover on accordion of the Charlie Daniels Band tune "Devil Went Down to Georgia." Can't remember who did the cover, though, just the accordions...
(And thanks for the Johnny Cash!)
I can't listen to RH in the car, so will either listen to classical or classic rock. One song I just heard this morning was the original "Pinball Wizard" by The Who. But I've always thought Elton John's cover of it blew away the original.
Not in the RH playlist I'm sure. Another cover you might have is McQuinn & Hillman's cover of Dylan's "You ain't goin' nowhere.'
Failing that, how about Jennifer Warnes' cover of "Night Comes On" by Leonard Cohen.
"Hold on to your hats," said Mike as he capped off his comments.
Good Morning!
The first song that comes to mind is I Cover the Waterfront but I know that's a wrong turn. One of my favorite covers is Bobby McFerrin doing the Beatles' Blackbird. Another is Claudia Schmidt's cover of Baby It's Cold Outside.
Well I think that about covers it for me....
i remember waking up to the morning show playing a Richard Dworkin instrumental version of guinnevere by CSNY that was gorgeous and sent me to the computer to buy the CD---and also christopher o'reilly playing radiohead---my favorite is karma police----
how about a rich-sounding keyboard instrumental, dale?
"Get by with a Little Help from my friends" by Joe Cocker
My apologies to Roger McGuinn.
Bill Medley's cover of Just Like a Woman is terrific! Good morning, by the way.
Oh Linda in St. Paul, Dale and Mike...thank you SO much for Nana Mouskouri!!! Might we hear more of her in the future? Especially anything French or Greek. Thank you, thank you.
Good morning! There's a female vocalist (Eva Cassidy?) who does a very nice cover of Sting's Fields of Gold. It's probably too late to get into the mix this morning but any time you wish to play that, I'd be happy to hear it!
Connie in Lester Prairie
Mozart had his music covered, too. Flanders and Swann's "Ill Wind" is a cover of the rondo finale of Mozart's horn concerto in E Flat Major K495. Wonderfully funny! And there are many other covers taken from classical music, as well.
oh, yes! ian anderson/jethro tull did a wonderful cover (flute plus rest of rock band) of a little Bach piece that i played on the piano as a kid---syncopated it and made it a lot funkier :-)
The Bobs cover of Caravan was great! I've never heard it before. A couple of my favorite covers, that I can think of this morning, haha, are Norah Jones' cover of Love Me Tender, and Iron & Wine's cover of The Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Another is Bob Dylan's cover of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi.
There are so many times when the covers are better than the originals. I particularly like the ones that completely change the nature of the song. Just a few of my favorites:
Connie Evingson's version of The Beatle's "The Night Before"
The Wailin' Jenny's versions of Jane Siberry's "Calling All Angels" and Neil Young's "Old Man"
Pretty much anything Eva Cassidy ever sang
Ollabelle doing the Rolling Stone's "I Am Waiting"
"Lovely" - The Poozies' adaptation of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly"
Gordon Bok's version of Judy Goodnough's (sp?) "Wild Birds"
Lots of recordings by Priscilla Herdman - Tom Waits' "I Hope I Don't Fall in Love With You" comes immediately to mind
Alison Kraus - "Baby, Now That I've Found You"
So many covers - so little time.
Wow, talk about interactive! Thanks for Eva, Dale.
Dale, see if you can find a CD that I gave you a few years ago. It was called 'Stormy Weather' and it was a highlight disc of that year's Walden Woods Project benefit concert. The line up was:
Gwen Stefani - Almost Blue
Paula Cole - You've Changed
Shawn Colvin - But Beautiful
Trisha Yearwood - Good Guy
Sandra Bernhardt - Is That All There Is?
Sheryl Crow - Good Morning Heartache
Natalie Cole - They Can't Take That Away From Me
Stevie Nicks - At Last
Bjork - Gloomy Sunday
Joni Mitchell - Stormy Weather
IMHO, Sandra Bernhardt is the only clinker. The rest are all amazing (yes, even Bjork!).
I recall reading several years ago that the most covered songs were "Yesterday", "St. Louis Blues", "Stardust", and "Tie the Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree." Three out of four ain't bad.
Wow! I can't wait to start looking for some of the excellent suggestions here. Thanks, Dale, for inviting people to contribute on this topic!
Gipsy Kings covering anything is another great listen!
"Other Voices, Other Rooms" is an album of covers by Nanci Griffith. One of my very favorite albums ever. I have sort of a collection of covers on my iPod-- Leonard Cohen songs and John Prine songs sung by many people. I don't seem to ever get tired of them.
Thanks for the Bruce, Dale!!
"Blue Moon" by the Marcels. Didn't know it was a cover song when I was a kid growing up in the Sixties.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock