Everybody’s talking cover songs. Or, they were a few days ago. I’m not just the guy who’s late to the party; I’m the guy who shows up after everyone’s left and the hosts are trying to clean up but feel obligated to sit down and have one more drink that they don’t really want with this bozo who has no sense of timing. One advantage to this is that I can limit to myself to covers nobody has mentioned yet.
Not surprisingly, Unqualified Offerings is (was) Covertalk Central, with entries “here”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2003_11_30.html#004766, “here”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2003_11_30.html#004769, “here”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2003_12_07.html#004774, and “here”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2003_12_07.html#004780. Here are my additions to the heap:
*New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”, by Frente* — Just one acoustic guitar and Angie Hart’s lovely, lilting voice. The band is long-since defunct, and it’s not like they had all that many good songs, but this one was groovy.
*Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble”, by The Blue Aeroplanes* — This one _has_ been mentioned — Henry of “Crooked Timber”:http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000953.html beat me to it, even as I was _so_ sure it was going to be my ace in the hole that nobody but nobody would think of. Henry notes that that album, _Beatsongs_, is OOP and darn hard to find, so I’m kicking myself twice for selling it a few years back. Let me give a shout-out to anyone else who remembers the Dutch Mother Underground doing _their_ cover of the Aeroplanes’ cover of this song, at a couple of shows at The Intersection in Grand Rapids circa 1992.
*Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”, by Cake* — Why has no one else mentioned this?? Is it honest ignorance, or some hoity-toity impulse that fails to recognize the genius of Cake? Phooey. This song rocks.
*Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, by the Cardigans* — I wouldn’t call this a _good_ cover, exactly, but it’s definitely surreal.
*Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet”, by the Indigo Girls* — Let me hasten to say that this wins my award for _worst_ cover. It is very convenient, actually, because I can point to Amy Ray’s screeching on that track to explain exactly when, and why, I stopped caring about the Indigo Girls.
*Bob Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat”, by Joan Osborne* — Just one of the many gems on the album that nobody listened to because it had that atrocious “What If God Was One Of Us” number. But the rest of it is great. I’m serious.
*Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, by Rasputina* — I heard this song on a mix CD made by Sara Zuiderveen, who, if she had a blog, would be kicking all our butts at this cover song game. This is one of those songs that you just want to set on constant repeat while you light candles and just lay there in perfect bliss contemplating the sadness of the universe. I know because I did it.
And the song I wish someone funky would cover: “No New Tale to Tell,” by Love and Rockets.