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Covers that 'made' the Original


Al Krow

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Just seen an interesting documentary, that was originally released back in 2015, so I suspect a bunch of you will already have seen it: "The Joy of the cover" on iPlayer.

What kinda surprised me more than anything was the Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' only charted after Alexandra Burke took her cover version of his (wonderful) song to #1.

I'm guessing that's not going to be the only example? So for those of us in covers bands (plus any other folk on BC who happen to like listening to music!): 

- any other examples of covers 'making' the original or doing something to the original that completely made it their own in a good way?

Hopefully that's a sufficiently soft sell for this thread... :) 

Edited by Al Krow
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6 minutes ago, BassBus said:

There, corrected. Hopefully that doesn't taint your love too much 😄

And their version was better than Gloria's right? She was a self confessed virgin when she sang the song and could never quite 'feel' it, whereas Marc Almond had no such issues!

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20 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

Mr Tambourine Man
All Along The Watchtower 
Hanging On The Telephone
Because The Night 
He’s Gonna Step on You Again
(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding

Some very good shouts there! 

And also a couple that I need to go away and listen to :) 

Have to admit one of the things I really love about these threads is my ears getting treated to some great music I should be, but am not yet, familiar with!

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Hurt (Johnny Cash)

Nothing compares 2 u (Sinead O' Connor)

Respect (Aretha Franklin)

Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)

Take me to the river (Talking Heads)

All the young dudes (Mott the Hoople)

Blinded by the light (Manfred Mann)

The only way is up (Yazz)

You've got a friend (James Taylor)

Ok, I'll stop now...

Edited by Islander
I keep remembering more :)
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" Without You "from the 1970 album No Dice by Badfinger was a later hit for Harry Nillson , and also later for Mariah Carey .

Fred Neil's " Everybody's Talkin' " was a hit 3 years after for Harry Nillson after his version was featured in the " Midnight Cowboy " film .

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IMHO it's surprisingly rare that the the cover is better than the original 

best example to me of the reverse being the case is the sublime "It's all over now Baby Blue" by Them, covering a Bob Dylan song (actually, probably most Dylan is improved by covers.....). Also:

Heatwave -The Jam

Nostalgia - Penetration

Fields of gold - Eva Cassidy

One - Johnny Cash

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11 minutes ago, Shaggy said:

IMHO it's surprisingly rare that the the cover is better than the original 

Fields of gold - Eva Cassidy

That was an absolutely beautiful cover by Eva before her untimely death.

However, Sting's original was, for me, equally good if not better.

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I feel like that about Bruce Springsteen songs, generally prefer the covers. Born to Run, Frankie goes to Hollywood, Blinded By the Light, Manfred Man's Earth band, Fire, Pointer Sisters etc

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16 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

any Bob Dylan song sounds better when covered than the original, I'm can never see what good songs they are when I hear his versions.

Bit of a link, Hendrix's covers were always better than the originals

It's kinda interesting the contrast you draw there. As neither would claim to have the world's best vocals. I suspect we'd all agree that one was amongst the best writers of lyrics and the other very possibly the best guitarist ever.

But I agree with you: as an example for me, one of the most beautiful love songs ever written was 'Make you feel my love' by Dylan. The lyrics are perfect.

But it was only when a 19 year old graduate of a Croydon school for performing arts recorded it, that I really sat up and took note of the song and had a 'wow!' moment. Just checked, she's had a 157 million YouTube views for just one version of her cover.

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I'll nominate Torn, my secret joy is playing the bass line, an example of a bass player getting it just right and lifting a song out of obscurity. I read an interview with Paul Bushnell bassist with the original band Ednaswap about how devastated the band were when the Natalie Imbruglia version became a hit. I had no idea it was a cover and listening to the original you can see why. Ann Preven doesn't sound torn, she sounds pretty angry and not someone you'd want to cross, the guitarist pisses all over everything and the light and shade doesn't fall right with the lyrics (which are great IMO) Bushnell is  a bloody good bassist but the session man on the Natalie Imbruglia song blows him away this time.

There's a postscript. I thought I'd see who the bassist was, Wikipedia rocks. Phil Thornally, who I suspect a lot of you know. Bassist with the Cure of Love Cats era. Grammy award winner and crucially co-writer of Torn. At least I recognised he was good :)

I'm off to see if I can still remember all those little fills.

Edited by Phil Starr
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7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

- any other examples of covers 'making' the original or doing something to the original that completely made it their own in a good way?

The definitive cover of Hallelujah was Jeff Buckley's 1994 version.

Joe Cocker, Get By With A Little Help From My Friends.

Delbert McClinton, Standing On Shaky Ground.

Eva Cassidy, Over The Rainbow.

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1 hour ago, chris_b said:

The definitive cover of Hallelujah was Jeff Buckley's 1994 version.

I think most musicians would agree.

But it wasn't the cover version that made the song famous.

In fact if Buckley hadn't died his version might well have disappeared with a trace.

The cover that actually had the biggest commercial impact on the song was by Wainwright / Cale in 2001 as part of the film Shrek. It's terrible in comparison to the Buckley version!

"It was on the strength of Wainwright's and Cale's renditions that "Hallelujah" truly became a phenomenon—six-year-old kids were suddenly singing "Hallelujah," and adults came to know it as the song from Shrek."

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