Favorite cover songs

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Holy fuck, how did I forget Soul Asylum's cover of Sexual Healing?

Oh right, I wasn't completely awake. Sorry.

[Sheldonrs]

Bette Midler's cover of The Rolling Stones "Beast Of Burden".

[McGoddess09]

-Any of the cover songs in the movie Moulin Rouge.
-Marilyn Manson's cover of Tainted Love and Sweet Dreams
-Disturbed cover of Forsaken originally played by Korn for the movie Queen of the Damned
-Atreyu cover of You Give Love a Bad Name
-Frou Frou cover of Holding Out For a Hero
-Evanescence cover of Thoughtless by Korn


That's all I could think of for now.

[Mishi]

- Dope's cover of 'You spin me round'
- The Wiggle's cover of 'Eagle Rock'

[fireheart]

- The Wiggle's cover of 'Eagle Rock'

Oh to be a kid again.

For the unfamiliar, The Wiggles is a kid's group in Australia. They are one of the most famous groups actually. They also put together a story based around an old folk song called "Black Velvet Band" involving a prince falling in love with a girl who fits the description in the chorus:

"Her eyes, they shine like diamonds,
They call her the queen of the land.
Her hair hung over her shoulder.
Tied up with a black velvet band."

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I'm usually not one for remakes or covers, however there's one that I absolutely adore:

You've Really Got Me - Van Halen (that guitar solo is so wickedly delicious) (originally recorded by The Kinks back in the late 60's)

[TheSHAD0W]

GWAR - School's Out (cover of Alice Cooper)
Insane Clown Posse - Let's Go All The Way (cover of Sly Fox)

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh to be a kid again.

For the unfamiliar, The Wiggles is a kid's group in Australia. They are one of the most famous groups actually. They also put together a story based around an old folk song called "Black Velvet Band" involving a prince falling in love with a girl who fits the description in the chorus:

"Her eyes, they shine like diamonds,
They call her the queen of the land.
Her hair hung over her shoulder.
Tied up with a black velvet band."

I know, I saw that. And my reaction was

Mainly because the song is actually about a pretty thief setting up a young man to take a fall for theft, and he ends up being arrested and deported to a south Australian penal colony. So they took a few very slight liberties with it.

"She'll oil you up with whiskey
Till you are not able to stand.
And the next thing you will find out, me lads,
You've landed in Van Dieman's Land."

And, of course, when we do it, we end it like:

Her eyes, they shine like diamonds,
They call her the queen of the land (and she was!)
Her hair hung over her shoulder.
Tied up in the back of Bob's van. " (Bob being our main drummer)

[Geek King]

Aerosmith's cover of The Beatles' "Come Together"

They make it actually sound...oily.

Also, RUN-DMC's cover of Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" Back when rap was worth listening to.

[AdminAssistant]

The Dresden Doll's cover of "Pretty in Pink" = win

However, their versions of Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" (French or English) are major, major FAIL.

Apparently, Amanda Palmer is releasing an entire album of Radiohead covers.

[fireheart]

I know, I saw that. And my reaction was

Mainly because the song is actually about a pretty thief setting up a young man to take a fall for theft, and he ends up being arrested and deported to a south Australian penal colony. So they took a few very slight liberties with it.

First of all, with the lyrics-that is the first time I've seen a song like that bastardized.

However nitpick on the quote-Van Diemen's Land is the area that is now known as Tasmania in Australia (It was known as Van Diemen's Land until 1856).

South Australia is a state (my state actually ) and had no convict settlements on it. The idea was that the area would be the place for the British to show off their best ideals, i.e. no religious discrimination or unemployment.

[tacohuman]

Apparently, Amanda Palmer is releasing an entire album of Radiohead covers.

performed on ukelele! *heart*

[Shalom]

Shades Apart's cover of "Tainted Love."

This one also works in reverse. The version by Soft Cell was itself a cover, and the original by Gloria Jones blows it out of the water.

[tropicsgoddess]

"I Want To Know What Love Is" Mariah Carey (originally Foreigner)
"Walk This Way" Run DMC and Aerosmith

[Jester]

While I am not always a fan of covers, since so many of them suck balls, there have been some really awesome ones.


Pat Benatar's cover of John Mellencamp's "I Need a Lover." Amusingly, Benatar released her version first (on her first album), before almost anyone had even heard of John Cougar (his name back then).


Crystal Kreviazuk's cover of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" from the "Armageddon" soundtrack is absolutely haunting, stunning, and many other ing's. She takes a somewhat romantic song and makes it heart-stoppingly beautiful. Most people know this song as a Peter, Paul and Mary song, but it has been covered by many bands, at least two of them recording and releasing it before PPM. Some people may remember that it was actually written by John Denver, who himself released it on an album the same year it became a hit for PPM.



Jimi Hendrix's cover of Bob Dylan's “All Along the Watchtower” is amazing....and not his best cover. That would have to belong to his still-ahead-of-its-time cover of “The Star Spangled Banner."


While I can't really stand Neil Young's voice, he is an amazing songwriter, and I definitely love hearing his work from someone else. Most notably, The Alarm's cover of "Rockin' in a Free World."


A couple of great rock covers of Motown songs would have to be Creedence Clearwater Revival's cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" and The Rolling Stones' cover of The Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud (To Beg)."

I have a CD where Heart does a kick-ass version of Zeppelin's "Black Dog".

Any Heart fan (like me) knows that Heart was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin, and for years they closed most or all of their concerts with "Black Dog."

When Ann and Nancy Wilson formed their off-shoot band The Lovemongers, they continued this Zeppelin tie-in. On their first EP, they did a spookily close to Zeppelin cover of "The Battle of Evermore." Spooky because Ann Wilson's voice can get so close to Robert Plant's.

You've Really Got Me - Van Halen (that guitar solo is so wickedly delicious) (originally recorded by The Kinks back in the late 60's)

I am often shocked by how many people are convinced that that is an original song by Van Halen. Not just young people currently, but people from my generation from when VH came out with it.

In a similar vein, there are way too many white people who don't realize that Eric Clapton's "I Shot the Sheriff" is a cover of Bob Marley's song. Hell, at one time I was one of them.

I should note that I love both originals AND both covers.

Also, RUN-DMC's cover of Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" Back when rap was worth listening to.

While Aerosmith's collaboration (it was not technically a cover, since the two groups performed it together) with Run-DMC was awesome, one of the best covers I have ever heard was a rap cover of a classic heavy metal song.

The song? AC/DC's "Back in Black." The band? Little heard of Hard Corps. Good luck finding this. I only ever heard it in my college radio station, and have been unable to find it online, or for that matter anywhere, ever since. But if you can find it, you can understand how rap can make metal awesome.

In the same vein, Body Count's cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe," while not as awesome as the above cover, is still pretty kickin'.


The amusing thing about this whole talk of covers is that my judgment of bar bands is ultimately determined by how well they cover The Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." A lot of bar bands do this. A lot of them do it well. A lot of them, sadly, do it poorly. A select few of them do it brilliantly. These tend to be the best bar bands, in my not so humble opinion.