Covers

After two postings on the issue of youth drug use and a reflection on Veterans Day, I thought it was time to have a little fun. 

I stumbled upon a YouTube treasure last week which got me thinking of some of my favorite recordings. Some of them are “covers”, recordings in which an artist takes a song originally recorded by someone else, and “covers” it with their own rendition.  I love hearing a great song taken under the wing of another artist who then creates a different bolt from the same cloth, adding their own “feel” to an established classic.  While there are some disastrous examples of this, typically the efforts render tremendous outcomes.

Here are a few favorites that come to mind.........

It Ain’t Me Babe – by Johnny and June Carter Cash in 1965, from the album The Orange Blossom Special.  The super-star duo took this Bob Dylan classic and made it their own, and was featured in the fabulous film Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.  If you have not seen that movie do yourself a favor and rent the DVD; it’s a reminder of what a great story told by great actors can look like.  Anchoring the song is Cash’s baritone, with June Carter’s playful alto dancing around his vocals, her harmonies giving a heartfelt and evocative beauty that can’t help but take listeners back to a time and a person in their life when they might have claimed, “No- no-no, it ain’t me, babe”.  Less world weary than the Dylan recording, it speaks with a winsome wisdom that only age and a broken heart can bring.  The whimsical harmonica - that most under-used and simplistically beautiful background instrument, adds luster and fiber to the song. It is just superb, and captures the duo at the height of their talent and their love for each other.   

Just my Imagination – by The Rolling Stones. The greatest band in rock ‘n roll added their superb re-do of the Temptations classic on their triumphantly redemptive 1978 album, Some Girls.  The incomparable song-writing duo of Jagger and Richards took this MoTown classic and added an up-tempo and funkier feel.  Charlie Watts’ percussion both anchors and propels the song, while Richards' rhythm guitar and Jagger’s throaty lyrics give it an edge, without sacrificing its magical, pop feel. 

Last Kiss – by Pearl Jam.  The genius of Eddie Vedder gave an entirely new feel to this 1962 Wayne Cochran gold-standard of pop music.  Bassist Jeff Ament claimed, “it was the most minimalist recording we ever did”, proving again that less can be more.  Pearl Jam rocks it up just enough to give it an attractive edge, removing the overly saccharine feel of the original without molesting its pristine innocence.  The guitar chords in the second verse evoke shards of falling icicles, and Vedder’s mournful wails at the end, like the desperate cries of a mortally wounded animal, bring home with savage clarity the distended anguish of a broken heart. 

Beast of Burden – by Better Midler.  The Divine Miss M takes one of my all time favorite compositions, with its distinctively lilting riffs, wonderful harmonies, and wistful lyrics speaking of self-doubt and the longing for physical closeness, and delivers a completely different feel.  She powers the song with a far more accomplished and robust voice than Jagger’s, and the attendant video is hilarious; campy to the extreme and filled with ruthlessly sarcastic self-parody that casts a strutting and preening Jagger in the unfamiliar role of “second fiddle”.

Other great covers involve artists covering their own work, two superb examples being Eric Clapton’s un-plugged version of Layla, and The Pretenders string-quarteted re-mix of Back on the Chain Gang.  In both cases the artists took their own iconic originals, and using different instruments and tempo, created better songs than the originals.

These are just a few examples of great artists who, with a wink and a nod to their predecessor, add the flair of their talent to create a completely different effect with the same music.  I gotta believe it’s great fun for them as well. 

What are some of your favorite “covers”?