When is a cover not a cover?

Picture the scene. A popular song-writing duo writes a song for another band, who have been struggling to get into the charts. That song is released and does quite well. Then, only three weeks after the song is released the guys who wrote the song release their own version of it, although only as an album track.

Well all this happened in 1963. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote I Wanna Be Your Man in the corner of the Rolling Stones’ studio, and the Stones went on to record it.

I wanna be a top 20 single, baby.

It was released on 1st of November, 1963, reached number 12 and was the Stones’ first top 20 single. But only three weeks later it appeared on the Beatles’ second album, sung (mainly) by Ringo Starr.

I wanna be your cover, baby.

Given the simplicity of the song, and the general music of the time, they are different versions, and both bands bring their own flavour to it. The Rolling Stones make it sound like a Rolling Stones song, and The Beatles make it sound like a Beatles song. For the most part this is an important aspect to a cover. If a band can make it sound like they wrote the song, then it has in some way succeeded.

I’ve never much cared for the Rolling Stones, though. I like Paint It Black, mainly because I loved Tour Of Duty, the 80s Vietnam TV series which used that as its theme song. And so their version of I Wanna Be Your Man, being one that sounds so much like a song they might write, doesn’t really do it for me. The slidey guitar thing they do, the fact that it’s slightly slower and Mick’s voice all add up to something that simply doesn’t appeal to me.

The Beatles version, on the other hand, seems brighter, and boppier. It seems like he does, actually, wanna be her man. It’s easily my preferred version.

It’s interesting to me that the chords are slightly different between the two versions. The Beatles version stays on the same chord throughout the whole verse, whereas the Stones version alternates between two chords. I wonder which way it was originally written and I wonder who changed it for their version and why.

But the big question is: which version is the cover? Usually the band who first releases a song gets the right to call it the “original” recording. And as I have discussed in other posts, that original recording comes with certain responsibilities. It is the version that all other versions are compared to. The definitive version. But if someone writes a song but gives it to someone else, do they also hand over the right to claim the “original” tag?

Quite simply, yes. The original version of I Wanna Be Your Man is the Rolling Stones version, regardless of who wrote it. The Beatles version is the cover. So it is completely coincidental that it is also the superior version.

When she gets weary…

In 1991, the Australian rock band The Screaming Jets had 3 top 40 singles, including Better which reached number 4 position. Their debut album reached number 2 in the album charts. They were really quite a big deal at the time. (How big a deal? Well, they toured with Ugly Kid Joe, and we all remember how huge they were). They certainly didn’t need the “instant audience” assistance that a cover would bring them. So it may seem odd that their second album included a cover, which was released as a single. What is even odder is that the song they covered, while a cult hit, was certainly not a mainstream commercial success. It was, however, a defining song of the Australian underground music scene (back when underground meant that less people actually heard your stuff).

Shivers by the Boys Next Door was released in 1979 and represents the first mark that frontman Nick Cave would make on the Australian underground scene. Now I must say, I have had an interesting relationship with Nick’s music over the years. There are albums of his that I absolutely love, some that I admire but don’t actually listen to, and others that I really don’t like. But I have such respect for him that those albums I dislike actually anger me, because they are so bad and I know he can, and should, do better.

But this song, which incidentally was not actually written by him, is a corker. The music is hollow and distant and yet driving. Nick sounds like he’s crying all the way through it. It basically created the template for a career steeped in melodrama, depressing imagery and lyrics which sound deep if you want to think of them that way. “You know my baby? She’s so vain she is almost a mirror. I know, right? And there’s this weird thing that happens when you say her name so, you know, please don’t.” According to wikipedia, the opening line about suicide meant that the song was banned on a number of radio stations, which almost guarantees a certain class of audience.

The Screaming Jets were certainly not aiming for that same audience at the peak of their career. I can only assume they covered the song simply because they liked it.

We could make a humidor out of our love

Which only makes me wonder why they decided it should sound as much like Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn as possible. I can almost hear the guitarist saying “I could do some lonesome distorted bluesy thing” and the drummer jumping up and saying “yeah! and then I can come in with a tasty little roll before the chorus!” and then they’d all give each other high fives. However when it comes down to it, they turned the song into a typical rock ballad which, given they were a typical rock band, is not that surprising.

What is surprising is that they released the song with mistakes in the lyrics. (Or perhaps they are “improvements”. I’m not sure which of these choices annoys me more.) I’ll leave it to you to find them, but the changes either don’t rhyme or are nonsensical. It’s one thing to get the lyrics wrong on a live recording (as with the REM cover posted earlier) but to rehearse, record and then release a song with incorrect lyrics is unforgivable, and takes this cover from the merely “bad” category to the “I deserve a medal for having to listen to this multiple times while writing this post” category.

Checkmate in Charge

I’m not only obsessed with covers. It’s important that you understand that. I would hate to come across as one dimensional so early in our relationship. I have other obsessions as well.

I love most pop culture, but have always particularly loved television. I think that it is (or at least was) a greatly misunderstood medium. People are all too ready to dismiss it as of little value, and even though in recent years (thanks to shows like The Wire or Breaking Bad) it has got some cred, I think that TV in general, and comedy in particular, is still not seen as “important” in the same way that a film or novel are (despite the fact that there are some truly terrible films, and even worse novels).

Quite a few years ago now, a friend who shares my love of TV suggested we start a band. The band’s name (for reasons which don’t really exist) would be “Knee To Groin: Checkmate”, and we would play all covers. But not just covers of any songs. No, Kneedagroin (as we would no doubt be known) would exclusively play covers of TV Show themes. Imagine it. You go to a pub. There’s a band setting up in the corner. They plug in, say “1 2, 1 2, 1 2” and before you know it they rip into a ball tearing version the the theme from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It was a perfect scenario.

When thinking of songs we would do, one that was at the top of both our lists was this classic from 1984:

It was an incredibly cheesy show, with an incredibly catchy theme song, whose only reason to exist was to keep Scott “Chachi” Baio on our screens, which was reason enough to love it.

There are 2 things, which happened somewhat simultaneously, which ensured that Knee To Groin: Checkmate never saw the light of day. One was that our bass playing friend suggested an even stranger idea for a band (which, in turn, we started) and the second and more compelling reason was that the TV Show Scrubs had basically the same idea at the same time. Their in-show a capella group “The Blanks” performed a few songs, including this version of the above theme.

We agreed that not only had the TV show cover-band idea been “done” but more importantly the definitive cover of the Charles in Charge theme now existed. There was no way we could top this, nor would we want to try.

Sometimes a cover comes along that is quite different in style from the original, and yet shows a reverence and an understanding of where the original is coming from. I will explore this concept further in a later post, but I wanted to show that this sitcom, in paying homage to an earlier one, has achieved that goal where many “real” acts have tried an failed.

A welcoming kiss

Welcome to my new blog.

Here I will be exploring the cover version, looking at specific ones, and talking about covers in general. I'm hoping to come to an understanding of why I have a mild obsession with covers, what makes a good one, and what makes a bad one.

I'm going to start with a song that, when I first heard it, I didn't actually realise was a cover.

In 1988 The Art of Noise recruited Tom Jones to do the vocals for their cover of Prince's Kiss. Although we didn't realise it at the time, it was the dawn of a new era for Tom and he was going to spend the next few years wearing black and being sexy to people half his age.

The song itself is odd, and I think I thought that at the time. I knew nothing of the Art of Noise then but the track is full of 80s samples, synths and sounds that typified their style. It came from the same era as Mello's Oh Yeah, and it sounds like it. There is so much going on, musically. If your ears could blink you would ask them not to, for fear of missing something.

It was Tom Jones, though, that brought Art of Noise into the charts. His voice is amazing, his expression throughout the clip (as if he's going to start pissing himself laughing at any time) and the fact that he was SO OLD and yet still singing about sex (but not in a creepy Tina Turner way - really if I paid for a private dancer and got that, I would be asking for a refund) was all combined to make a song that, in its own right, was fantastic.

I had heard of Prince, obviously, but I didn't realise that Kiss was a cover. I remember hearing Prince's version for the first time, on a crappy little tape deck in the computer room of my friend Budge's house. I laughed so hard. I couldn't believe that that pathetic and pissy little song actually came before the bombastic, and obviously superior version that Tom sang.

Everything about this song is ridiculous. The falsetto voice. The wimpy guitar. The empty arrangement. The whole disconess of it all. And the clip, with the tiny little man and his cute little high heel boots and crop top. The scrawny little body stripped to the waist. Singing about being sexy, of all things! I mean really, you could have someone's eye out with one of those elbows (if only he could reach that high).

And yet, unlike Tom, Prince seems to take this all incredibly seriously.He does have the odd grin and "wacky" expression, but you otherwise get the impression that it is very important to him that his woman act her age, not her shoe size, because if they don't do the twirl THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.

But, if you follow the links and read the YouTube comments, there are Prince fans out there who love his version. It is, after all, the original.
And this brings me to my first observation. Not only do we like what we know, we tend to immediately kick back against anything that is different from the familiar. Not only did I hear the Tom Jones/Art of Noise version of Kiss first, I wasn't aware there even was another version. Had I heard the Prince version first I might have preferred it. I might look at the AoN version as some kind of sacrilege.

But I didn't and I don't. And while I obviously can't say that Prince's is, as it came first, I can (and will) say it's a good try, and an adequate first draft. And without it we never would have had the fantastic image of Tom Jones zipping up his fly.