covers of songs you love that caught you off guard
edith head
5,106 Posts
meaning unobvious covers. i love neil young's "i've been waiting for you" but there are lots of songs that are more likely to be covered from his discography than that one. overall, i prefer later smoldering neil but this has a special place in the sentimental. it's a modest and simple neil y song compared to later stuff, so it was unlikely that someone in popular music would think to cover it cause it's not really neil sounding if you're looking at the big neil picture. that's what i thought at least. one time i watched that episode of late night with conan where they re-ran one episode but everything was redone in stop motion claymation and david bowie was the musical guest. now i haven't been interested in anything present day bowie has done, but the song he performed on conan was a cover of this early neil young sleeper. i was so stunned, like "wait, can it be?" you have no idea how much i love this song. this was my go to closing track during college years when i made mixtapes for troubled dudes i had a crushed hard on. "i've been looking for a woman to save my life..." i thought it was poignant perfection for a few severely flawed young & dumb romances. anyway, back to bowie on conan, it took a few chords and lines for me to completely register and once it did, i yelled out to my roommate so loud "OH MY GOD AMANDA GET IN HERE!" cause i had to tell someone how weird this was and who knew better how much i jocked that song and how i used it than someone i lived with. i'm pretty sure i put it on a mix for her too. but beyond that weirdness, it was a claymation bowie singing one of my favorite neil songs nonetheless- i was in heaven. claymation bowie performing one of my favorite understated neil songs on conan... this was my kinda thing.i also bugged out when i bought a pixies velouria single at the kusf recordshow many years ago and the b-side track was kim deal singing this song. neil'spixies versionhave you've ever been surprised by hearing unexpected cover of a song you love? and/or what sleeper song would you freak out/love if you heard it covered?
Comments
lordy, i meant *I* crushed hard on
in other news, caught Bowie sonning Ricky Gervais on Extras last night (late pass) holy shit that was funny
If it comes back to me just where I have it I'll be back with audio
"I'm Gonna Love You Just Little Bit More" - Jimmy Smith
It's probably George Faith, "To Be a Lover."
It's on a Lee Perry-produced album, and was
actually something of a hit worldwide.
ye me le by the gimmicks.
That album is a good example, since he does some deeper
album cuts, stuff not always covered. The fact that "Julia"
ends up being the most heavy song always blew my mind.
Tribute albums, while generally uninspired, can sometimes
turn up some great pairings - a band you like doing some
obscure track that you thought nobody else cared about.
Sonic Youth doing "Computer Love" on the Neil Young benefit
for the Bridge disc was a great one for me. Even if it was
a bit obvious, it was just perfect to hear Trans material
done with guitars.
around and come up with these all day, I love covers....
Bobby Bare Jr's version of "What Difference Does It Make" by The Smiths.
David Byrne doing Whitney Houston- I Wanna Dance with Somebody. (He does this song with such sincerity and heart that it just makes me smile. I've seen him perform it live twice.)
I saw Phish cover 99 Problems with Jay-Z in Brooklyn. That was just head scratchingly strange. I thought I was hallucinating. Last thing I expected to see after being dragged to a hippy jam band show was.....Jay-Z.
Saw a Bluegrass/ Jug Band do a great cover of Guns and Roses- Mr. Brownstone, before launching into Mr. Crowley. It made me happy. It was real good.
http://www.spinjunkies.com/index2.htm
check the mp3s, encore vs friend of the devil is dope.
grateful dead vs jigga mashups = crazy deeelicious
Nice work SOI - with a quick 11 minute response time you edged out Pickwick
From Arkology vol 3: George Faith "To Be a Lover (Have some Mercy)"
ZSHARE
Don't have the William Bell ripped
george faith 'if loving you is wrong', bunny lee on the mix.
yes, & Ken Parker & Delroy Wilson do it right
(Slim Smith & Cornell Campbell also come up big, Ken Boothe is more of an acquired taste)
what getz me are all the reggae covers of Everly Brothers tunes & CSNY related songs
i think that the CSNY love is due to all the Isley covers of their stuff
but Boothe's "Down By The River" & the umpteen versions of "For What It's Worth"
(always called "Stop" in JA ?) along with "Birds", "Love The One Your With", etc is mind blowing
ras karbi covers bruce cockburn "longing for your touch"
&
raunchy & bev's neil daimond tune "solitary man"
also many Dylan covers (not the fake ass rolling bob modern thing)
+
many country tunes (check for Prince Count Miller's "Mule Train")
my white whale is a sons of pioneers cover rock steady style blank that i
use to own but was broken, not sure who (pioneers/techniques/paragons?)
with lyrics about east of the rio grande & wearing a yellow ribbon
still haunts me
Hmm...
On the reggae/soul tip: Hearing Ken Boothe's cover of "Is It Because I'm Black?" always threw me just because I don't think I had ever heard that song covered, at all, in any genre, by anyone else and the fact that Boothe really captures part of the heart of that song was remarkable.
I'm always struck when I find a foreign (i.e. non-North American) cover of any Nite-Liters song since I had no idea they had such a popular reach overseas. Sheeyit - there's what? 3 different groups in Peru who covered them, plus the Filipino joint too? Out of that whole batch, the Enrique Lynch medley flip with "K-Jee" is probably my most favorite.
This whole album could win in the category but Betty Lavette's more recent "My Own Hell To Raise" is like 11 songs worth of, "wow, she covered that?" but I suppose that was part of the LP's conceit. I liked hearing her take on Aimee Mann's "How Am I Different" in particular.
And the Coasters taking on "Love Potion #9" is straight up awesome and not something that I would ever, on paper, think was dope (unlike, say, covering "Mustang Sally").
This really *isn't* that surprising though considering there are at least a half dozen reggae covers of this tune out there (including the bootleg instrumental JA 45). As far as that Ken Boothe album (the one that features IIBIB) I am, like Tim, surprised at the "Down By The River" version. Actually one of my favorite tunes on the record.
I was initially very surprised at the reggae covers of Brubeck's "Take Five" (or rather, tunes voiced over that rhythm) but since I've been rooting around Jamaican collections I've realized that I just did not fully grasp their affinity for jazz.
Cosign on the "Take Five" covers. Always struck by those as well.
I haven't heard other versions of the Syl Johnson song by reggae artists (but that's not surprising) so Boothe's stood out for that reason. Whereas, I had already heard covers of "Down by the River" from unexpected sources - Dutch Rhythm Steel - so getting to Boothe's cover was less, "whoa, did he just do that?" That said: Boothe's version is GREAT.
spanky, check for Delroy Wilson's versions of "Is It Because I'm Black", beats out Mr Boothes to my ears
i once had 100+ JA inst/spoken word bootleg "IIBIB/Soul Heaven" at hand
the bosses wanted to toss them, i kept a fistfull
hind sights
Why must I cry?
I couldn't sleep last night and was thinking about this same thing.
Specifically, Zeitkratzer (German avant chamber group) performing Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Have you listened to Metal Machine Music? It's like 4 sides of total noise. To adapt it for an orchestra performance must be daunting enough, but to actually perform it--in front of people? It seems like it wouldn't yield much fruit, publicly, but I imagine it's quite a personal accomplishment, to have scored over an hour of total noise.
Out of curiousity, I aligned Lou Reed's "Part 1" next to the same by Zeitkratzer and listened to Reed in my left ear and Zeitkratzer in my right, to see how close they were. Pretty impressive, I must say.
Most covers have a certain novelty that leaves me flat. Like, you can hear the band, "Dude, wouldn't it be funny if we did a rock song really slow?" Exceptions, for me, include:
Rapeman - "Just Got Paid"
Fiona Apple - "Across the Universe" (only because there's not one Beatles cover I like besides this one)
Zu - "Theme De Yoyo" (that whole album, really, is pretty fantastic)
Sister Nancy - "Coward of the County" (wtf is going on here?!)
Live Skull - "Pusherman" (because it makes you want to do drugs)
Happy Go Licky - "White Lines (Don't Do It)"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TcjAy3VtMVU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AszbNtYlrBU
Live Skull - Pusherman (because it makes you want to do drugs)
to be honest the only thing Live Skull ever wanted to make me do was turn off the stereo...
Perhaps I'm missing some link, but I think Three Degrees doing James Gang's "Collage" is an interesting choice and it worked out beautifully.
Nina Simone can do any song and make it her own - "The Pusherman" is a great example of that - incroyable!
and curtis mayfields wonderful cover of 'we've only just begun' turned the tune into a black power message it was never meant to be