Top 10 Cover Songs... Part 2

Joe Cocker-With a Little Help From My Friends



Cocker's gravelly voice gives this song a much-needed makeover. The original Beatles song was sung by Ringo Starr and, well, is ho-hum at best. His nasally almost monotonous vocals makes this song easily the weakest on Sgt. Pepper's. To me, it's almost like an after thought. Like John, Paul, and George decided to throw Ringo a bone and have him sing a track. Bleh. Cocker's, on the other hand, lends the tune what it needs: EMOTION. The beginning lyrics is simply vocals and a bass guitar strumming two notes. I mean, his version made The Wonder Years what it was! His rendition allows for the song to build and build as the chorus of female voices is added on and is a welcome complement to the male lead. In all, Cocker makes this song, in a word, epic. And isn't it funny that Cocker is most well-known because of a cover song?

Here's the original by The Beatles:




Johnny Cash-Hurt



Oh man, where to begin with this one? I could just use a bunch of "one word reviews" to talk about this song: Jarring. Tragic. Emotive. Epic. Definitive. Brilliant. Personal. Moving. If you haven't heard this cover, prepare to be blown away. The original is by Nine Inch Nails and it comes across as more or less a creepy, angst-ridden song about depression and attempted suicide. Nice, huh? Well, Rick Rubin (the producer of Cash's final album in 2002) decided this would be a perfect song for The Man in Black to cover, and he was right. This one song introduced Cash and his music to a whole new generation of fans and is considered a defining song of his career. Cash's voice is old, worn, and tattered, the constant piano chord being played louder and louder is like a clock ticking. Cash knew that he was on his way out. This is almost like his epitaph to the world. He transforms this song from what it was (see above) into a bitter rejection of material goods. The "hurt" Cash sings about is not physical self-inflicted pain, but rather an emotional outpouring due to his wife's failing health (she would die in 2003). The music video says it all, really. He is sitting in a large house, surrounded by wealth, all the while having flashbacks to his early years as a singer. "Everyone I know goes away in the end"--his life is almost defined now by his friends essentially dying all around him. Getting old sucks! Everyone you know starts to die! "You could have it all, my empire of dirt"--all this material "stuff" he's gained over the years is ultimately worthless. The video shows a cracked framed record, a room full of "junk," a table full of food. As the song climaxes, he begins to pour out the wine on the table while staring directly at the camera. The song ends and Cash closes the piano and just lowers his head. Fade to black. Ahhh! Talk about shivers running up and down your spine. If you've seen the his biopic, then you know the demons he carried throughout his life, which just adds weight to his performance of the song. You know what? I just made an executive decision that this is the greatest cover of all time. Boo-yah.

Here's the original by Nine Inch Nails:




Pearl Jam-Last Kiss



PJ takes the original, which sounds strangely happy and upbeat for a song about a car accident that kills the "singer's" girlfriend in front of him, and puts at least some emotion into it. Eddie Vedder's voice is intrinsically filled with raw power, so the content of the song matches the anger and sadness with which he sings. When he sings the chorus, asking where his "baby" can be, he is almost yelling it out to the world/heaven/God/whomever is listening. It's similar at the end, which I love, when he starts yelling "oh OHHHHHHH OH oh oh oh, etc." like words aren't enough to describe what he's going through holding his dying (and then dead) girlfriend. Overall, the band might as well have written this song themselves because it has become so tied to them anyway.


Here's the original by Wayne Cochran:




Michael Jackson-Smile



Yeah, I snuck an MJ song onto this list, of course. This song was actually written by none other than Charlie Chaplin. Jackson said that it was his favorite song of all time, and when someone like MJ says that, it means something. Okay, I know what you're thinking. It sounds really corny, and I think I'm putting it on here for the message more so than its arrangement, but the content of the song is pertinent whether it's sung in the 1920s or 2020s. The world is full of shit, but sometimes all it takes to make you feel better is to just smile. What a simple message. I don't know if I would've put this on here if MJ hadn't died a while back, but his death does add to the song I think. Here's a guy that had absolutely zero childhood to speak of, his father was a complete DICK (and still is) who abused him, and when he grew up, he understandably wanted to at least try and regain his lost childhood (i.e. Neverland Ranch, Bubbles, etc.). He surrounded himself with children because he wanted to feel like a kid himself for once. Anyway, let's not get into a big discussion about it. I just think that when MJ sings, he's carrying with him the weight of his troubled past and the lack of times he was able to truly smile in life. Now, this has been covered by a bunch of people, including Steven Tyler. If we want to get technical, the original performance of the song is by Nat King Cole. Therefore, one could say that MJ covered Nat King Cole. But, I'm making another executive decision and saying that everyone else covered Chaplin. He never actually sung it, but he composed the music and wrote the lyrics based on an instrumental bit in one of his movies. So, I'm gonna say that because it was based on a piece of music from the 1930s that Chaplin was the original man. K, cool.

Here's the "first" version by Nat King Cole:




The Beatles-Twist and Shout



Whenever you have a song be such an integral part of one of the best scenes in one of the most iconic pop culture phenomenon's (?) in cinema history, you've got a good thing going for you. The parade in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is such a classic scene and having The Beatles' version of this song playing as the crowd gets bigger and bigger is perfect. The original is by some group called the Top Notes. It almost sounds like a parody of a 1950s song. Anyway, Lennon does INFINITELY better. Apparently, they did a TON of takes of the song because they couldn't get the vocal sounding right. Eventually, they took one of the final recordings, which, by then, Lennon's voice had gone completely hoarse. Either way, the hoarseness was what they were looking for and it definitely gives the song much more charisma and spunk.

Here's the original by The Top Notes:




Hope you enjoyed my list! Obviously, some of the songs are debatable and I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who could substitute one on here for another. But I actually found it very hard to make this list, especially coming up with the last 3 or so covers. Which I guess is an indication that it's very rare to one-up someone else's song. Unless you're really good or the song has become so dated it's ridiculous. Out of all the songs here, only 2 are from after 1980 (Cohen's "Hallelujah from 1984 and NIN's "Hurt" from 1995). So that's probably somewhat telling. Yeah...bye.