We moan about music all the time here at Picky Bs. You know that already. One particularly area of music has often come under particular criticism from a few of our writers, and that is the cover song. Often pointless, sometimes offensive, and never the best representation of what an artist is all about – you can understand our ire.
That said, it would be false to say that cover songs are sometimes absolute magic. They can surpass the original, make gold from shit, and, on occasion, they can make you see the original version in a different light. The latter is what we are here to discuss today.
Here are the cover songs that changed our minds about the original:
Lisa Whiteman-Pierce
What cover shifted my view from meh-ing the OG to actually liking it? I’ve toyed with this longer than both anticipated and necessary, and still won’t provide much of a straight answer. Originally I was swinging to Patti Smith’s divine cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, because we all know the original is an overhyped pretender to Man in the Box’s throne. Still is, I just like what she did with it. Same goes for Sinead o Connor covering ‘All Apologies’. Conclusion: other people are better at Nirvana than Nirvana.
However, still not answering the question – most of those I consider are covers I just *prefer* to the original – Sharon Jones’s superior presentation of Woodie Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’, and the already shouted out Sinead o Connor’s grenade like delivery of John Grant’s ‘Queen of Denmark’ getting honourable mentions. But, noting I am still in my probationary period following a break in Bastard Service, I am going with My Morning Jacket’s cover of ‘Rocket Man’. Cannot abide Elton John, nor his windy candles. However, Jim James seems to be able to tell this admittedly heartbreaking story even more authentically than the story’s subject, even when recorded in his mam’s basement before the band released anything. Still don’t like the original. I tried.
Fran Slater
I’d heard ‘The Whole of the Moon’ by The Waterboys plenty of times – it’s one of those songs that pretty much everyone knows – but I’d never really taken much notice. It was okay. Tuneful. Better than a lot of the songs that have become ubiquitous in the same way over the years, but not something I was going to rush to listen to.
And then, following the death of Scott Hutchison, and my subsequent Frightened Rabbit rabbit hole (yes, that’s a double rabbit), I discovered their cover of the song. While everything by the band was suddenly amplified emotionally following his death, I connected to ‘The Whole of the Moon’ because it was something I hadn’t heard him perform before – and because the words he was singing seemed so relevant. With lyrics celebrating someone who sees the bigger picture, who has done more than the person singing, and who has an expanded worldview because of their life experiences – it felt like Scott was singing about himself without realising it.
His performances always filled songs with emotions that might not otherwise have been there, but revisiting the original it was clear that the same resonance existed in the same way.
Fast forward to earlier this year, and what song do you think was chosen for my aunty’s funeral? Yes, it was ‘Whole of the Moon’ by The Waterboys. If it hadn’t been for my turnaround with this song after hearing the Frightened Rabbit version, I wonder if it would have simply passed me by as background music. Instead, I was able to hear it and understand why it was so fitting for the occasion.
So while, on the whole, cover songs can be forgettable and unnecessary – for me, this is evidence that they can sometimes open up a whole new understanding of what the original artist intended.
James Spearing
This Joy Division classic takes on a new life in the hands of South African Spoek Mathambo and his signature ‘township tech’ sound. The driving and building electronic beats could seem far removed from the original, but, as with many bands who were later influenced by Joy Division, this leap from guitars to synthesisers and drum machines isn’t actually as far as you might originally think. This is how my evolving, personal appreciation of ‘She’s Lost Control’ has felt over the years anyway. Spoek’s version, especially accompanied by the music video, creates a wider metaphor of societal or political elements of control with its images of violence and clever use of the dichotomy of shades in the contrasts of black and white film, compared to the individual loss in the original song. It doesn’t take a huge leap of to imagine what this could mean for Spoek in his own lifetime. In this it does what any great cover should do; bring new context and particularities to something already familiar. A brilliant reworking.
Rick Larson
Please indulge me in some mild pedantry as I explain my taxonomy of cover songs, because this is a difficult question for which I may not have an answer. Bad covers are those that take a good song and make it worse. There are too many examples of this to count here; there are like fifty versions just of Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’ alone. Why are you messing with a perfect thing? I particularly hate covers of normie songs by punk bands that are just the originals with the bpm’s and volume elevated or, the converse, hushed versions of rowdy songs. It’s too easy. The other type of bad cover is a rendition of any song, good or bad, that sounds too close to the original. Why bother? Weezer, a band I love, has maybe the worst example of this, a cover of Toto’s execrable ‘Africa’ that is indistinguishable from the original. A double whammy of a bad cover.
There are two types of good covers. The first takes an existing good song and makes it good again in a completely different way. Talking Heads’ ‘Take Me to the River, The Clash’s ‘Pressure Drop’ and Minutemen’s ‘Dr. Wu’ are prime examples. The apotheosis is Devo’s ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’ That song is now a classic twice over.
The other type takes a mediocre song or even a bad song and turns it into something good. I believe, after some wandering, I have now bumped into the assigned topic. The kicker is that I am to have changed my mind about the original from the cover. I’m not sure that a cover has ever accomplished that for an original I dislike. But, I choose Cake’s cover of Gloria Gaynor’s disco megahit ‘I Will Survive.’ I was going to grapple with the complications of white guys from Sacramento covering a song of female empowerment sung by a Black woman and appreciating that original now long removed from a disco backlash that ultimately turned into a revival, but I read that Gaynor is an enthusiastic MAGA donor. (WTF). So, screw her. Great cover, though.
Will Collins
I’ve long been a Neil Young fan, but for a long time this song had left me a little cold. Given the quality of his songwriting, ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ had always struck me as being relatively simplistic and forgettable, particularly as it is placed on an album (After the Gold Rush) which contains some of his best work. The straightforward piano, drums and acoustic guitar arrangement didn’t help dispel this impression. However, hearing Saint Etienne‘s balearic re-working of the song changed my feelings about it.
Built on the foundation of a hip hop beat so relaxed it threatens to trip over itself at points, a hypnotically dubby bassline and stabs of housey piano, it’s a captivating, dancefloor-adjacent classic. In some ways far more maximalist than the original, it’s also relatively stripped down. Like the original, it has relatively few instruments and plenty of space for the dubby production to breathe. The closing refrain of ‘I was always thinking’ sums up the ruminative, melancholy beauty at the heart of the track and made me realise what I had missed with Young’s original. On his version, it is the contrast between the simple, jaunty music and the sadness of the lyrics that lends the song its power, rendering his reflections on heartbreak all the sadder for their counterpoint to the music.
Kate Burke
I distinctly remember hearing Angie McMahon‘s version of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ for the first time, appearing on a random Spotify playlist and frustrating the hell out of me as to where I had heard the song before, when it hit me. Could it possibly be that this heartfelt, melancholic ode-to-breakup was originally penned and performed by ABBA?!
Having grown up in a household where ABBA Gold was regularly on repeat, I was probably overly surprised by this. Perhaps it’s because I only really took cognisance of the song in relation to the spangly beats of ‘Dancing Queen,’ the blatant emotional turmoil of ‘The Winner Takes it All’ and the opportunity to make up a snazzy routine acting out ‘Money, Money, Money’ – it never grabbed me in quite the same way. Or perhaps given my age, it went completely over my head, because “breaking up is never easy, I know’ … but reader, I definitely did not know.
Listening to McMahon’s performance, it finally made sense to me. The resignation of finality, the heaviness of ending but knowing you will be forever entwined but never in quite the same way you were before. Not just an incredibly catchy chorus “uh huhh…” – but capturing a moment, a difficult decision, a seismic shift in a relationship. Given my prefered musical leanings, I will likely always favour McMahon’s version – but it did make me finally appreciate the original.
Tom Burrows
Arctic Monkeys have never taken themselves too seriously; that wry “don’t believe the hype” warning from their very first single was a tone-setter for the music to come. And this relaxed attitude was evident every time they stepped into BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge around a promotional cycle. Proper renditions of their new songs were often followed by unexpected covers, performed with gusto, that made you actually grow to like the original. Nowhere was this more evident than in 2006 when they went full-whack into Girls Aloud’s ‘Love Machine’, or in 2012 when they put a guitar and drums spin on Katy B’s drum and bass smash ‘Katy On A Mission’. Both covers show exemplary commitment to the cause, and I really enjoy them. I’d previously not been a huge fan of either song, and while I’m still not likely to play ‘Love Machine’ out of choice, I will admit to an appreciation for its hook if it comes on now. ‘Katy On A Mission’ is a certified banger though.
Fliss Clarke
Great question, and deceptively difficult because it requires a pre-existing knowledge of the original. There are great cover versions i love – Charles Bradley’s ‘Heart of Gold’, Nirvana’s ‘Man Who Sold the World’ and so on – where I wasn’t really aware of the original. Racking my brains for this particular question had me circling back to Alien Ant Farm’s ‘Smooth Criminal’. I was entirely unfussed about MJ’s version, then Alien Ant Farm slammed in with brazen punk pop urgency. Annie, are you OK?!? ARE YOU OK ANNIE? It was all over the emo dance floors and MTV2 injecting racy crank guitar energy into what I felt was a limp original. It’s odd how it is both fun and dark – there’s no escaping the violent scenes of the lyrics, which I somehow missed and dismissed in the original. And yet also, absolute bop. A complicated song to like, but Alien Ant Farm exploded Annie’s plight and a banging tune into my and the general noughties alt consciousness in a way it deserves.
Picky Bastards 