A while ago, someone pointed out to us that ever list of the best cover songs of all-time includes cuts like "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Guns 'N Roses or hits by-- gulp-- Cher. Hopefully, this will be at least a step in the right direction...
10. Step Into a World (Rapture's Delight) - KRS-One. We have to admit, this is only on here because there's no other hiphop cover that's as close to our hearts. You can keep your lame Fugees cover of "Killing Me Softly," which even that group's members despise. You can keep your P. Diddy sampling/ripoff garbage. KRS-One didn't need to cover or even sample Blondie's "Rapture" for us to remember this cut from the mid-90s-- that's how superior it is to other hiphop covers.
Step Into A World (Rapture's Delight)
9. Comfortably Numb - The Scissor Sisters. This is pure pop, and maybe the disposable kind: disco. However, to take a classic like Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and not only turn into a catchy dance freakout, complete with a far more memorable melody has gotta count for something, no?
[YouTube link]
8. Crossroads - Cream. This is an old Robert Johnson song, one that guitar player Eric Clapton was dying to tear into for years before this live performance at the Fillmore. He's never been able to top this, not even on Layla. After years of listening to it, we're still awed by that brutal solo.
Crossroads
7. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley. It's come down to this-- it takes an angry backlash by a dead singer's internet fanbase to give Jeff Buckley the Top 5 hit he always deserved with this Leonard Cohen song. Although pretty much every version except the John Cale attempt (which is arguably even more famous, since it was used in Shrek) is worthy of the Master, it would be hard to top the simple beauty of young Buckley's 1994 release, which grows sadder every year. "All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya."
Hallelujah
6. Hurt - Johnny Cash. Neither one of his best songs nor one of his best covers (those would be Folsom Prison Blues and Sam Hall, respectively), but seeing how there are so many people that think this is his peak, we find ourselves including it here anyway. In this version, recorded shortly before his death, Cash stripped away the anger of Trent Reznor's initial take on the material, giving it the devastating treatment it really deserved. Even notoriously pop-minded country music fans dug it-- it went on to win the CMA for Single of the Year.
Hurt
5. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin. "If it sounds country, man, that's what it is-- it's a country song." Despite being a very pop version of a nostalgic Southern anthem by Kris Kristofferson, Joplin's first and only #1 is still essential for road trip mixes more than three decades after her death.
Me And Bobby McGee
4. House of the Rising Sun - the Animals. When Eric Burdon bought Bob Dylan's first album, he discovered, amid a bunch of forgettable covers, an obscure traditional folk song about a little girl in New Orleans. Alan Price provided the unmistakable keyboard intro and the Animals had a #1 song, just like that, a prize that should have been their first of many. Unfortunately, this is the one for which they are best remembered.
House Of The Rising Sun
3. With A Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker. This cover of a song from the Sgt. Pepper album was such a tremendous success that the Beatles took out a full page ad in a newspaper to congratulate Cocker on the arrangement. And that was before he'd performed what for us is the single greatest concert number of the 1960s-- seen here at Woodstock:
2. Respect - Aretha Franklin. "That woman stole my song," Otis Redding said of this version, his tone a mixture of pride and despair. Today, you can't play the songs back to back without saying, "Ouch, she really whipped the original's ass, didn't she?"
Respect [Album Version]
1. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix. We don't really need to explain why this is #1, do we? Just for fun, we'll remind you of the story of a London studio in early 1968, where Jimi sat working on a new record, when someone burst in with tapes from Bob Dylan's late-'67 Nashville sessions. Hendrix immediately began reworking the short, sparse, and folkie tune into a full-on electric guitar assault. We'll let Dylan tell you the rest:
"It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way." [Biograph liner notes, via Wikipedia]
All Along The Watchtower
Honorable mentions: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - the Animals (by Nina Simone); Soul Man by the Blues Brothers and I Thank You by ZZ Top (both recorded by Sam & Dave and written by Isaac Hayes); Mr. Tambourine Man - the Byrds (by Bob Dylan); and Stop Your Sobbing - the Pretenders (written by Ray Davies.)
Obviously, it's much easier to think of atrocious cover songs that radio stations see fit to play these days: Limp Bizkit's "Behind Blue Eyes," Madonna's "American Pie" (never the greatest set of lyrics to begin with, but then you add her insipid melody to it), Britney Spears and Hillary Duff butchering everything imaginable, and just about anything Sheryl Crow has released this century-- especially "The First Cut is the Deepest," which should've made Cat Stevens come out of retirement and do a world tour just to show her how it's done.
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