Queen Jane Approximately

Recently I was listening to a Bob Dylan cover by a really great artist and was disappointed to realize it left me cold. And it occurred to me that that one of the keys to a great Dylan cover is that the singer not be technically fantastic. 

They don’t have to be as unconventional as Dylan—an underrated singer, actually, but not one with universal appeal—but that having an unusual voice is perhaps not only a bonus but in fact necessary for it to be great. 

I'm thinking of, obviously, Jimi Hendrix and "All Along the Watchtower" or Bruce Springsteen's cover of "I Want You" or the Drive-By Truckers joyful "Like a Rolling Stone" or U2's "All Along the Watchtower" or Dave Matthews' "All Along the Watchtower" or, frankly, Bob Dylan's cover of Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower." 

(I'm sensing a pattern here.) 

This isn't to say great artists can't do fine versions. I mean, The Staple Singers. Stevie Wonder. The Byrds. Adele. Bryan Ferry. Rod Stewart. Van Morrison. I would perhaps stipulate that in addition to being outstanding singers, they all have an abundance of character.

But, still. To my mind, the majority of the best covers are by singers who don't come close to approaching the vocal prowess or purity of, say, Mariah Carey. 

And then this hit. And I’m proven, once again, totally wrong. Because absolutely everything about this is spectacular, from the very first bits of guitar picking to where her impossibly gorgeous vocals enter. And yet she manages to convey the essence of the lyrics without ever lapsing into style over substance.  

War Pigs

 This is old and the greatest thing I have ever seen. 

Tuscon Train

This is an unexpectedly effective cover of one of Bruce Springsteen's great songs of this century. Steven alters the melody in small but effective ways, and his voice is as accessible as it's ever been. And—no surprise, given his skills—the arrangement is fabulous. 

Comfortably Numb

I have to assume Dave Gilmour sent his part in with the understanding that Ice-T would use the bits he liked best. 

Which apparently, and understandably, was the entire thing. Having a Gilmour solo underneath the entire song was inspired, especially since he sounds absolutely invested. 

Everybody Hurts

This. 

This is how it's done. This is a cover. 

“I could really feel the heaviness of the song and I wanted to inject a little touch of hope and light into it,” Green said in a statement. “There’s always a presence of light that can break through those times of darkness.”

Mission more than accomplished, Reverend. 

 Michael Stipe added, on behalf of R.E.M., that “this is an epic moment for us.”

So say we all. 

Like a Rolling Stone

 So a while back I wrote:

I've heard a few good covers (Jimi Hendrix, Green Day), a couple okay (the Rolling Stones' version actually was better than I'd expected if still not exactly transcendent) and a bunch of terrible (John Mayer, sure, but David Gilmour?! What were you thinkin', man?), but few if any great. 

And I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Because this cover is not good. It's absolutely great. 

I think what I missed the first time is that element that takes it from good to great. 

It's not Bille Joe Armstrong's vocal delivery, which is indeed great and has a similarly punkish attitude as the original did, even if their nasally vocal tones sound nothing alike. 

It's not Mike Dirnt's typically great bass playing, laying a perfect foundation over which the others can go anywhere. 

No, what makes this cover great is Tré Cool's typically incendiary playing. His post-post-punk playing gives the cover the kind of energy that the Bobby Gregg gave the original—especially that opening snare shot that, as one fan put it, "sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind"—but updated for a new century. 

As the bard once said, "play it fucking loud." 

I'm Waiting for the Man

 This is the coolest thing I've seen/heard from Keef this century. His low-key approach, the fact that we all know whereof he speaks, and the lack of vocal fireworks on the original, make this a killer combo. 

One

I don't know how I missed this at the time but I surely did. Eddie Vedder covering "One" for U2's Kennedy Center Honors. 

The song's abridged. The tempo's a bit too fast. And it's maybe the finest vocal performance I've ever heard Eddie Vedder give, and I believe I've heard everything official studio recording and dozens and dozens of hours of live material from him. 

Bono seems to be nearly vibrating as he listens and it's hard to blame him. 

Faithfully

I'm a big fan of the generations that had the extreme misfortune of following mine. Huge fan. I'm Team Millenial and Team Gen Z all day. All. Day. But what they seem incapable of understanding (as with a distressing percentage of my own generation, and most of all those...you know...Boomers) is that Journey pretty much sucks. Arguably as a band and definitely as a corporation. 

Look, I've come around on "Don't Stop Believin'," in large part because the drums are phenomenal and the structure is weird, and that's more than enough to overcome the arena rock platitudes and geographic sloppiness. Also, to be fair, it's truly hard to come up with a stadium stomper as powerful and enduring. So. 

But in general Journey is the anti-Beatles. They are five insanely talented musicians who together produce significantly less than the sum of their parts. 

Except...I really like some of their stuff. Which doesn't mean it doesn't suck. It just means that blind pigs and being a certain age and all that. So no matter how awful the video for "Separate Ways" is—and it is—the song's pretty kickin'. 

And even as my most sneering, as only a teenager can be (or one who remains terminally teenaged into his dotage), I always liked "Faithfully." I liked the backstory about Jonathan Cain's wife asking if he was ever tempted to cheat whilst on the road, and how he wrote this lovely ballad in reply. (The fact that he did indeed subsequently cheat on her, leading to their divorce may take some of the shine off the song but, hey, trust the art and not the artist and all that, right?) 

One of the delightful surprises over the past decade is watching as Miley Cyrus not only seems to have pulled herself out of what looked like a disaster spiral but has subsequently revealed herself to be one hell of an artist. I can't claim to be an expert, having heard fewer than two dozen of her songs, but every cover I've heard her do has been at least good and some have been extraordinary. 

Such as this casual walk through "Faithfully." The ease with which she dips in and out of it while talking with the audience at the famed Chateau Marmont is striking. And her husky voice is a wonderful counterpart to Steve Perry's crystalline vocals on the original. 

Cleveland Rocks

Ohio's had some issues this century. But as songwriter Ian Hunter said, "the inspiration for 'Cleveland Rocks' goes back to the old days when people used to make fun of Cleveland. Cleveland was 'uncool' and LA and NYC were 'cool'. I didn't see it that way. Lotta heart in Cleveland."

Damn skippy. 

Androgynous

Just earlier today I was thinking about how little I care for harmony. It's not that I dislike it—I often love it—but I care less about it than I do about timbre and texture and rhythm and, most of all, melody. In fact, when it comes to multiple vocals in popular music, I greatly prefer to have entirely separate vocal lines which perhaps sometimes interlock and perhaps sometimes don't than to have richly layered harmonies. 

Which is why I was shocked by just how much I love this cover of the great Replacements song. I assume it's mainly due to director Ione Skye. (I'm a big proponent of the auteur theory.) 

Walk on the Wild Side

Q: when are we talkin'?

A: now. Right now. Now we're talkin'.

September

Come Sail Away

This is just all kinds of groovy.

One of the many, many MANY things this COVID-19 pandemic has taught us is, fortunately, we live in an era where we can stay in touch with each other easier than has ever been possible. Zoom, WebEx, GoTo Meeting, Google Chat, Skype and I am sure things I am unaware of to date have given us mechanisms to remain connected and to even see each other while we all socially distance ourselves for the foreseeable future.

And that goes for creativity too. A global health crisis doesn’t stop the flow of art, it only hinders it a bit. People are still writing, still drawing and still singing and playing, whether alone or with friends via one of those platforms mentioned above. And thank JVJH for that—creation is something we all desperately need right now, innit?

Which brings me to this. This is just supercool.

OK, first I need to offer a confession. I love this song. Yes, I know it is goofy and precious and silly as prog can get. It’s overwrought and overwritten. (“We’ll search for tomorrow on every shore.” Wow). But I love it still. Love the water droplet piano opening. Love the odd verse-verse-chorus-chorus structure. Love the power chords when the songs shifts into overdrive. And I do love the way Dennis DeYoung sings it; dude was a Grade A Goofball, sure, but he had a set of pipes on him that most would kill for. Or at least maim for. The notes he hits twice on “To CARRY on” are pretty remarkable.

So I love the song, OK? I just do.

But these four kids…my goodness. Look how young they are! And they nail every INCH of it. They’re apparently called Leave Those Kids Alone (clever!) and are from Canada, and the youngest seems to be nine years old. You can check out their Facebook page for this and a ton of other terrific takes on classic rock songs. This sure as hell brightened my day and just may do the same for yours.

Play on, players!

Just What I Needed

Sure, the band's name—Dwayne Gretzky—is what first caught my eye. But damn if this cover band doesn't do a fantastic job of reinterpreting unbelievably well-known songs without dipping into formula.

Manic Monday

In which we learn that punks can grow old gracefully. (With luck and if they so choose.)

A Demon Went Down to Georgia

Forty years after I first heard (and loved...and was perhaps a bit frightened by) this song, it suddenly occurred to me today, out of absolutely nowhere—I wasn't even listening to the song, or had just run across it somewhere or anything and the brain is a weird damn thing—that the line

The devil went down to Georgia he was lookin' for a soul to steal He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind And he was willing to make a deal

Wait...why was the devil behind? The devil's got quotas to meet? Does he have a boss he answers to? Meaning either God, or else it's not really the devil, is it? It's more like a demon. But I guess "A Demon Went Down to Georgia" isn't quite as catchy.

Also, even as a very superstitious child, I thought the devil kicked Johnny's ass from Valdosta to the Chattahoochee National Forest and back again. 

The Weight

In a business which has never suffered a shortage of jackasses, there are few more notable than Robbie Robertson, even when accounting for his tremendous (if tremendously overstated) talented.

But this is pretty damn awesome. The transition from the Kingdom of Bahrain to Nepal is spine-tingling. And getting Ringo was a bit of musical genius.

Cat's in the Cradle

According to the redoubtable Cover Me, Harry Chapin was distressed with the original recording of "Cats in the Cradle," feeling it was far too fast. It's a funny story in hindsight, given how popular it became, and how lasting an impact the song has had.

But then you listen to his daughter's version and it seems ol' Harry might have been onto something.

The younger Chapin had serious musical training, and it shows, as she toys with the melody here and there but never strays far from the oh so well known basis. And the recording is emotionally devastating: the original had more than enough pathos, but it's impossible not to listen and think about the fact that she's singing this song about a distant father which was written by her own father who died when she was just 10.

Outta My Head / Separate Ways

How, in this post-post-postmodern world do you make a good video for your fine song? With a shot for shot remake of the worst video ever, of course.

I have very mixed feelings about this remix culture society we find ourselves in, where memes are so prevalent and truly great works of art are often first introduced to and best known by younger viewers/readers/listeners by the snide (and often very funny) jokes made out of them and at their expense. On the one hand, I love the way the internet has granted so many artists the tools and audiences to enable them to create in a way they likely never would have a few decades earlier. On the other hand, I don't think it comes without a cost.

But this? This is just gold.