A way with (other people's) words
The title of today's post comes from the Everett True book that I've just finished, Live Through This. The book looks at grunge - and the other forms of American rock music that splintered off, informed and bisected Nirvana and all that followed. This means he delves back to The Melvins and Green River, to Dinosaur Jr and to The Lemonheads.
And, when discussing Lemonheads leader Evan Dando, True says, "he had a way with other people's words".
I like the line - and as well as being from True it is true. Dando loves to take a song and reinvent it; covering country and rock, pop and indie tunes. The Lemonheads' cover of Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson was the song that saw the band reach a whole new audience, but it was not (just) a cheap cash-in novelty cover. Long before that The Lemonheads had covered Suzanne Vega's Luka. The band had also covered Patsy Cline for that matter.
And it continues. This year there was the release of a covers album by The Lemonheads (Varshons) which sees Dando doffing the cap (again) to Gram Parsons and going on to cover everything from Christina Aguilera's Beautiful to GG Allin's Layin' Up with Linda.
Varshons clearly exists for Dando to pay tribute to some songs and writers he loves (staples of the all-covers album, Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt are accounted for). But you can look through all of Dando's work, solo and under the name Lemonheads, to see that he has always, as True said, "had a way with other people's words".
This got me to thinking about other musicians who have a way with other people's words. The obvious example is Joe Cocker - but he is not a songwriter. So for the purposes of this post I won't include him.
I've always been interested in songwriters who continue to offer covers throughout their career. What, to them, makes the song worth covering? Presumably it is one of two very obvious points; a) the writer of the song was/is a big influence on the performer offering the cover and/or b) the artist offering the cover simply loves the song.
But there are writers, like Dando, who continue to pepper their albums and live shows with covers - reinventing songs, paying tribute.
Who are your favourites when it comes to serial cover-ers?
I think of David Byrne, whose Talking Heads-cover of Al Green's Take Me to the River was always a highlight of Talking Heads shows. He has gone on to build an idiosyncratic solo career, covering Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody - and it was Byrne's cover of Captain Beefheart's song Well that first gave me an understanding of Beefheart beyond just thinking his music was weird and impenetrable. He has also covered Lambchop and operatic arias in and around his original material.
Bob Dylan has long favoured covers - when he had a career-stalemate in the mid-90s he revisited the country-blues and folk songs that had been such an influence and turned out Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, which not only made up for the atrocious Under the Red Sky, but recharged his career, assisting him in recovering his muse and refocusing his energies for Time out of Mind and then of course Love and Theft, Modern Times and this year's Together Through Life.
Live in concert Dylan often covers Paul Simon songs, occasionally covering Neil Young and regularly offering a nod to Warren Zevon.
It makes sense to revisit covers as so many people start off performing them. The Rolling Stones continued to drop soul and blues covers in and around their originals on their 1970s albums... (That's just one obvious example, I'm sure you can think of plenty of others.)
But some people get it wrong far more often than they get it right.
The first person a lot of readers might want to mention is Cat Power. She did do a good job with The Covers Record - certainly. And some of her owns songs are okay. But recent covers album Jukebox is a desperate attempt at hipster-cool. What made The Covers Record cool was its nervousness and its stripped-back mode of invention and innovation. Singing Satisfaction without its defining chorus, picking one of the lesser known Velvet Underground songs...simple choices to make but that was the magic. And when you record covers that are better than your originals...well...you have a problem. And so does your audience - unless we apply The Joe Cocker Principle.
Rod Stewart has also gone from a couple of decent covers to killing the memory of a once-decent career.
I think a really good serial coverer needs to also be writing strong songs - songs that are as good as or better than the songs he or she covers. That's what you get with Dylan and the Stones. You get that with Evan Dando too (Come On Feel the Lemonheads, It's a Shame About Ray and, I would argue, Car Button Cloth are all bursting with fruity pop flavours. And those are just the mainstream albums.
Elvis Costello has the balance; for all of the protestations that Costello has slowly, steadily gone off the boil, if we look at the best of his career it is a phenomenal body of work. And within that he has always served up some choice covers. Including two excellent tribute albums of cover versions.
The same goes with Prince.
So who do you think has a way with other people's words?
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Chris W - can you expand on how Hallelujah gets misinterpreted?
Covers albums: liked Patti Smith's Twelve and Nick Cave's Kicking Against the Pricks.
simon: a) the writer of the song was/is a big influence on the performer offering the cover and/or b) the artist offering the cover simply loves the song.
AND! When I started playing guitar I had to LEARN how to play first so by listening to covers and LEARNING chords etc etc off records you get to a stage where you can start writting songs (much later)
And if you enjoyed said covers you may STILL play them years later (I do) much like Evan Dando does I suppose........
It is always interesting when artists with a strong body of their own work choose to pay tribute (or take the piss out of) another artist's vision, wearing their influences on their sleeves. Faith No More's covers of Lionel Richie and Burt Bacharach tunes appear to be doing both. And if you want real piss takes check out Jack White's cover of "Jolene", or You Tube Frank Zappa doing "Stairway to Heaven". Eddie Vedder also spring to mind as a unique re-interperter of others songs.
It was a sort of traditional for bands in the 50's and 60's to perform a cover as their last song of the night or as part of the encore. It was a nice way for them to pay homage to their peers or influences or try something a little different.
For a cover to work it has to be different enough from the original to actually add something to the song. I heard the Luka cover and it didn't really do that.
Husker Du did cool covers: 'Eight Miles High', 'Ticket to Ride', Helter Skelter', 'Love is All Around'. But lots of bands do cool covers (Sonic Youth's take on Madonna, CCR and the Carpenters, and, my absolute fav - Straightjacket Fits 'So Long Marianne')
Have to say - I way prefer Cat Power's originals to covers, although she does an interesting version of 'Fate of the Human Carbine'.
I think Jimi Hendrix's take on All Along The Watchtower is a great interpretation, which for most people has become the definitive version.
Here is another slightly more obscure cover from the great man. I've been told this performance was on the same week as the original was released. There is also a pastiche of I Feel Fine at the beginning while they are still playing Hey Joe, very clever stuff.
Clapton and Baker must have s**t themselves when they saw this. It's loose and a bit messy, but some how sums up the The Experience's exuberance and sense of humor.
I can't decide if this is one upmanship, a mark of respect for their peers or just some subversive fun at the shows expense.
Johnny Cash's cover of NIN and Soundgarder were both pretty sweet. Judas priest did pretty well with diamonds and rust And i always enjoyed head like a holes rendition of Im on fire
Glad you mentioned His Bobness; he often finds a way of turning a song in some direction you'd never have expected with nothing but a change of vocal emphasis or smart choice of arrangement.
Dylan's constant peppering of his albums and concerts with other people's songs strike me as just being someone who damn well likes music, and likes playing music. It doesn't get much better than that.
Glad you mentioned His Bobness; he often finds a way of turning a song in some direction you'd never have expected with nothing but a change of vocal emphasis or smart choice of arrangement.
Dylan's constant peppering of his albums and concerts with other people's songs strike me as just being someone who damn well likes music, and likes playing music. It doesn't get much better than that.
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Not sure if one song is enough to qualify, but Jeff Buckley's re-imagining of Hallelujah is certainly up there. Even though soooo many people misinterpret the lyrics as to be ridiculous!