Running for Covers
One of my pivotal musical memories is from 7th-grade study hall when Michael Jackson’s Rockin’ Robin came on the radio. (Yes, for some reason we were allowed to listen to the radio in study hall.) We were psyched but the teacher, Mr. Bracken, just laughed and said bemusedly, “Oh my, this old song?” I was confused. From where I was sitting it didn’t get much fresher than the Jackson Five wonderkind busting out with a new solo effort. I had no idea and didn’t really care that it was an old Bobby Day hit.
Of course over the years I came to understand that new artists, for better or worse, routinely remake, or cover, previous hits. (My education in this regard came full circle some years later when Bananarama covered Venus, of which I was particularly fond of the 1970 original by Shocking Blue. In a room full of teens singing along with the radio all I could think was, “Oh my, this old song?”)
Nowhere can you better immerse yourself in the art of the cover than Brian Ibbott’s thrice weekly podcast, Coverville. Each 30-45 minute episode features a variety of covers ranging from Seu Jorge’s version of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel (a revelation) to Paul Anka regaling us with Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel (no comment).
If you like your covers fast, loud, and punked-up, check out the all-cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Any of the 30-second clips from their album Blow in the Wind will tell you all you need to know about this band. Their version of San Francisco (uh-huh, as in “be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”), in particular, is impressively bent.
There’s no end to the lists of best covers, worst covers, favorite covers, on the ‘net. But taking it to another level is the Covers Project, a site devoted to creating a searchable database of cover songs. They also propose to use this knowledge to create “cover chains”, which are lists of songs in which each artist covered a song by the previous artist. For example, Counting Crows covered Friend of the Devil by The Grateful Dead; The Grateful Dead covered Hey Jude by the Beatles; The Beatles covered Roll over Beethoven by Chuck Berry. It’s actually quite challenging to come up with a list of more than three or four songs (without cheating) — try it!
And what of today’s 7th graders? If you’re looking for just the right words to explain to an 11-year old why you know all the words to Jessica Simpson’s latest can’t-miss hit, These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, it’s all explained here at KidzWorld.
The Byrds covered Dylan somewhat obsessively throughout their career
