The Cover Up

In light of the last post and the fact that I've been finding a lot of awesome covers lately, I want to make a list of my favorite covers. I'm sure I'll remember more as I go along and have to post them, and I'm not even entirely sure I haven't done this before, because I've thought about doing it so many times. Also, I'm not even going to address Beatles covers, because there are many amazing ones and I don't want to list them all. Nevertheless, here it is. 

• First, a great big bow to Lindsey for finding Obadiah Parker's cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya" - it's unbelievably amazing. 
• "Major Tom" covered by Shiny Toy Guns, originally by Peter Schilling
• "In Between Days" covered by Ben Folds, originally by The Cure. Actually, Ben has a few awesome covers, including "Golden Slumbers" and "Video Killed the Radio Star"
• "Creep" covered by Ingrid Michaelson, originally by Radiohead. I've never gotten over the first moment when I realized Ingrid was singing Radiohead with a ukulele. 
• "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" covered by Keane, originally recorded by Frankie Valli
• "Don't Forget Me" covered by Neko Case. I don't even know who did the original, but this version is beautiful.
• ". . . Baby One More Time" covered by Fountains of Wayne, originally by Brittany Spears. I love this version, but I need to track down the version by Travis that Spence told me about this morning. I'll let you know if I find it.
• "Ocean of Noise," covered by Calexico, originally by The Arcade Fire
• "Keep the Car Running" covered by The Foo Fighters, originally by The Arcade Fire
• "Cello Song" covered by The Books, originally by Nick Drake
• "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow" covered by The Soggy Bottom Boys, originally brought to the attention of the world by Bob Dylan (haha - Treb's right, this is an older song and I don't know how long it was around before Dylan did it, but his version is great). 
• "If It Be Your Will" covered by Anthony, originally by Leonard Cohen 
• "Run to the Hills" covered by Barn Burning, originally by Iron Maiden. I mostly throw this in because I was really proud when my brother sent it to me and I identified it as an Iron Maiden song. 
• "I Wanna Be Like You" covered by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, originally sung by Louis Prima in The Jungle Book
• "Free Falling" covered by Kings of Convenience, originally by Tom Petty
• "Ring Them Bells" covered by Sufjan Stevens, originally by Bob Dylan - there are many amazing Dylan covers out there, but I love this one because it's so original and awesome. 
• "I Will Survive" covered by Cake originally by Gloria Gaynor.
• "Long Black Veil" covered by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, originally by Johnny Cash (I think). 
• "Ring of Fire" covered by Coldplay, originally by Johnny Cash
• "Waters of March" covered by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, written by Antonio Carlos Jobim with the definitive original probably being Joao Gilberto (Treb, correct me on that if I'm wrong). Anyway, this version is great. 
• "Suddenly Everything Has Changed" covered by The Postal Service, originally by The Flaming Lips
• "Lullabye" covered by Lucy Kaplansky, originally by Billy Joel
• "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You," covered by Muse, originally recorded by Frankie Valli (wow, two that Frankie Valli did first - who'd have thought?)
• "Wonderwall" covered by Ryan Adams, originally by Oasis
• "1,000 Umbrellas" covered by The Format, originally by XTC (I remembered this one today and Treb commented about it at the same time)
• "Hallelujah" covered by Jeff Buckley, originally by Leonard Cohen. I'm pretty sure I meant to put this one in the first time around, but I think I had a momentary internal debate about whether to reference Rufus Wainwright's cover as well, and then it just didn't make it.  Which reminds me of a marketing principle I learned today, actually. 
• "Moon River" covered by Innocence Mission, originally made famous by Audrey Hepburn
• Okay, I'm not sure if this counts, but Yovee has a song that is a total rip off of Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party." It's called "Intimate Controversy," and I swear they stole the chorus and just added things here and there. I'm putting it here for the sake of comparison. 
• I haven't found it anywhere yet, but have you heard Cat Power's cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on the Lincoln commercials? Apparently they're launching a Major Tom campaign, but it sounds great. I want it. 
• "Such Great Heights" originally by The Postal Service, covered by Iron and Wine
• "Waiting for a Superman," originally by The Flaming Lips, recently covered by Iron and Wine (which is what reminded me of the "Such Great Heights" cover.)
• There's a whole album of them, but "Rock and Roll Suicide" originally by David Bowie, covered by Seu Jorge - amazing. I'm a big fan of the original song, but I especially like it in Portuguese with the "Gimme your hands!" still in English. It's quite fab.
• "Bohemian Rhapsody," originally by Queen, covered by The Flaming Lips. I'm also a fan of their version of "What a Wonderful World" and "Plastic Jesus," but their version of Bohemian is a lot of fun.
• "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" or "Feeling Good," covered by Muse. I have no idea who did the originals, but their covers are excellent.
• "With God On Our Side," originally by Bob Dylan, covered by Straylight Run. There are a lot of great Dylan covers out there, and I'll probably mention more.
• "Across the Universe," originally by the Beatles, covered by Fiona Apple. I know I said I was leaving the Beatles covers out, and their are so many excellent versions of this song, but I have particular love for this one. And now that I've added this, I want to add all of the others, especially Joe Anderson's version of "Happiness is a Warm Gun" from Across the Universe.
• "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" by Coldplay, covered by Mark Ronson. This is actually an instrumental cover - it's almost a brass groove version. Most excellent.
• "I Shall Be Released" by Bob Dylan, covered by Wilco (during election season)
• "Bean Vine Blues" which is M. Ward's cover of sorts of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer." 
• "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon and Garfunkle, covered by The Bangles
• "Romeo and Juliet" covered by the Indigo Girls, original by Dire Straits (I really didn't care for this cover for a long time, but I've now decided it's worthwhile.)
• "Manhattan Skyline" covered by Kings of Convenience, originally by A-ha. 
• "I Fought the Law" covered by The Clash, originally by Sonny Curtis and The Crickets

Also, I've been adding and just realized that I changed formats halfway through, which is a big oh well because I'm not fixing it, but also, I heard this fantastic cover of "Smile, Smile, Smile" on Castle the other night, and I haven't figured out who  did it yet. It was so funny to have that WWI song that Dr. Tate talked about pop up (especially since it was the opening music over the murder reveal). 

More coming eventually, I'm sure. Watch this space.