Cover songs

So it’s been a few days since my last post; sorry about that, but I’ve been in working two jobs for a couple of weeks. This means that I have less time than ever to post stuff; I barely have enough time to waste on Facebook and look up song lyrics. But that latter item got me thinking about my topic for this entry: cover songs. Okay, it’s a lot lighter than some of the other topics, but I thought it was about time to lighten it up a bit.

Cover songs are great: Cover songs, in addition to being a great new take on existing classics, are also a great way for current artists to reinterpret oldies but goodies. The current audience might never even listen to some songs of they weren’t covered by current bands / performers.

Sometimes the new version makes you go back and listen to the old version, and it can often lead to a renewed interest in the original artist’s other work as well.

Virtually every performer that exists today has covered other performers. That is the whole premise behind Karioke and the “Idol” series. Doing cover songs has given what may have been unknown performers a legitimate shot at success. Examples are the Ataris covering “Boys of Summer”, Alien Ant Farm  covering “Smooth Criminal”, the cover of “Mad World”, “Don’t dream it’s over”, George Thorogood covering John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One

Scotch, One Beer” to name a few. Even some of the now most famous performers with their own huge body of original work got their start doing cover – performers like the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Shania Twain, Kelly Clarkson; again, the list goes on.

It has reached the point where a lot of performers will do entire cover albums, or “tribute” albums, as they are often called. It is both homage to and recognition of the influence of past great performers. And it’s not like it’s a new phenomenon. We just used to call them “traditional” songs or “public domain” songs. How often has a song like “Oh My darling

Clementine” been covered? Or, for that matter, all classical music? I’m not suggesting that Michael Jackson is musically comparable to Brahams, but you get the idea.

The last point in this is that if the new artist can cover an old song well, and bring a new or different meaning to the song, then it is proof that the artist is as important as the song.

Cover songs are stupid: The only thing that cover songs do is prove that new performers have no talent – they can’t even write their own songs.  Maybe many performers did do cover songs early in their careers, but as soon as they didn’t have to, they stopped and started performing their own work. If you want to look at American Idol, Kelly Clarkson is famous for her original work, not her cover of “A Moment like This”.

Maybe cover songs do give some performers a shot at fame, but they only become famous for those songs and then they quickly disappear. If the only way you can get fame is by recording someone else’s work, then you shouldn’t be famous. Especially when so many covers sound exactly like the original. A lot of times you can’t even tell the difference between the two. That is the point of Karaoke – to sound as close to the original as possible, not to put your own interpretation on it. And most songs can’t be reinterpreted anyway – how does “One Bourbon, one Scotch, one Beer” mean anything different when George Thorogood sings it?

And the renewed interest argument is weak. I didn’t see anyone rushing out to by a copy of Dolly Parton’s “I will always love you” when Whitney Houston covered it – anymore than anyone watched the 1976 “Omen” after watching the 2006 “Omen”. Passing interest is all a cover will generate, along with some trivia geeks saying “That’s not really their song”.

If it really was the singer not the song, then nobody would write any new music.

What I think: I am, as always, in the middle. I know I have some strong opinions, I just don’t know where. Some covers have been very well done; others horribly done. In the “horrible” department, I would include Cher/Celine/Melissa’s cover of “You Shook me all Night long”, Sheryl Crow’s hack job of “First Cut is the Deepest” by Cat Steven, and any bar band cover of “Brown Eyed Girl”, just because it is so overdone. In the well done category, I would place Nirvana’s unplugged version of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”; David Usher’s “Fast Car” originally by Tracy Chapman; and Rage Against the Machine doing “Kill a Man” by the Cypress Hill.

I do think that an artist can bring a new interpretation to a song – the aforementioned Atari’s cover as an example. Often, though, they don’t they just want to, they just like the song and I think want to show their roots – but I think that is pointless. There are occasions where the cover becomes more well known – for example, the BareNaked Ladies interpretation

of “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” has become more well known than the Bruce Cockburn song – and in situations like that I think it is a good thing. 

Sometime it is the singer, sometimes it is the song.

I particularly dislike covers of iconic songs, though. Dolly Parton, herself an icon, never should have covered “Imagine”, for example, or that horrible country cover of “Piece of my Heart”. Whenever a song is very closely associated to a particular performer / group, the risk in covering it is great. A cover of “Hotel California” would bear that risk; as would a cover of “Thriller”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, or even “Wannabe” (not that anyone would cover that). Surprisingly, I like most of the covers of “Stairway to Heaven” because they tend to be completely different; they don’t try to replicate Led Zeppelin. 

I should probably differentiate here between “iconic” and “one hit wonders”. If someone were to cover “Steal My Sunshine” that would be fine, because it was Len’s only song. But a song like “Imagine” was definitive John Lennon, and the best of his huge body of excellent work. So a cover of “Come on Eileen” may be fine – it may still suck as a song, but I wouldn’t have a specific problem with it because it was Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s iconic song.

How I relate: I don’t. I have no vested interest in cover songs, I just like music. And everyone relates to music. And cover songs. 

And if you’re counting this is my second post about music, and I have revealed a lot about myself so far, probably enough to do a profile.