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.

Jedward and upward

Australia has been generally  unaware of the musical stylings of the Irish twins "Jedward". Those that follow Eurovision might recognise them as the rather impressive water feature from this year’s contest.

I myself became aware of them a while ago, through various UK people retweeting some of their more bizarre and koan-like tweets (e.g. “You know what we want? We want to go to the Super Bowel we hear that it's the biggest bowel in the world and we have a lot of Cereal!”). You’re never quite sure if they are taking the piss, are quite daft or are really very deep.

Jedward gained prominence on the UK version of the talent show X-Factor by, like many talent show acts, singing covers. Their first single was a cover. In fact, of the eleven songs on their debut album Planet Jedward, all eleven of them are covers.

All of them.

While I could choose any of these, I have decided to look at their second single: a cover of Blink 182’s All the Small Things.

This song was a huge hit for Blink 182, being their first song to take the number one spot. It was itself the second single from 1999’s Enema of the State which marked a small but significant change of direction for the band. Much like Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, or even Nirvana’s Nevermind, it was musically similar to earlier albums by the band, however was produced with a wider radio audience in mind. The guitars were crisp and clear, the voices and harmonies polished. You could tell it was well rehearsed. There were also a couple of slower, more thoughtful songs. It was, therefore, seen by their fans as something of a sell-out. This was reflected in the clip for this song. The band are seen dressed as members of various 90s boy bands - complete with slow motion wind machine shots and screaming (mainly) girly fans. But if you listen, without watching the clip, it still a 90s California punk-rock song at heart.

So how would a 21st century pop duo interpret this song? Quite simply, they don’t.

Say it ain’t so

Jedward’s cover of All the Small Things is a note for note identical version of the song. The music and arrangement is exactly the same as the original (with the addition of some keyboards). The major difference is in the vocals and that is because Jedward can’t actually sing very well. (Other acts with Jedward’s level of talent would rely heavily on auto-tuning, and it is a testament that, from all available evidence, they don’t.)

This track epitomises the pointless cover. There is no artistic value in it whatsoever. It is purely a money making venture - an easy way to get these twins on the radio and into people heads. Blink 182 (or at the very least Tom DeLonge) would have received some income from the sales and there is some argument that a cover will make people aware of the original artist, but I would be surprised if any Jedward fans would be snatching up Blink’s back catalogue just because of this track.

Having said that, I would love to see an Irish teeny bopper’s face the first time she heard Family Reunion (warning, contains rude words).

The power of One

As you might guess from the title, today's theme is prejudice, and about overcoming it against the odds. The cover in question is by one of my favourite bands who were covering, at the time, one of my least favourite bands.

Achtung Baby was released in 1991 and heralded a new era for U2. The first single, The Fly, was dripping in vocal effects and synths. It marked a departure from their previous work and was part of a much bigger re-imagining of the band. 80s U2 were a rockband with a message. 90s U2 were a stadium pop band with a keyboard.

I hated it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not because I had such respect for their 80s music - I didn't. I thought they were just a bunch of political tossers with too heavy reliance on 3 chords and a delay pedal. But I hated their "new" stuff because it was so pretentious. The Zoo TV Tour, a stadium tour attacking commercialism, was basically taking the piss out of the people who had paid money to see it, and I hope the people in the first few rows were issued raincoats to protect themselves from the wank spurting from the stage.

So by the time their third single One came out, I inevitably hated it too. Although, musically and stylistically, it was more Joshua Tree than Zooropa, and although it used a whole five chords, I still hated it. I hated it for Bono more than Edge, though. I remember picking up on the line "are you trying to play Jesus to the lepers in your head". I mean really. Was that supposed to be deep or something? I knew their little fan boys and girls would be lapping it up, and couldn't they just see how pathetic it all was, really? Fanboys can be so blind.

1991 also heralded a fairly new era, musically, for me. I was just starting to get into some bands that would stay with me for the rest of my life (so far, at least). In particular, R.E.M. caught my attention. Out of Time, their biggest album by far, was released and topped both pop and alternative charts, pretty much causing the death of the newly coined concept of "alternative". I'd love to say I was into R.E.M. from their early days, but I wasn't. I had heard Orange Crush, but was otherwise pretty much completely unaware of them. That changed very rapidly though, and by the end of 91 I was well versed in the entire back catalogue.

So that was me in 91. Hating on U2 and loving REM.

Many years later, around 1999 or 2000, I was searching on Napster for "<band name> cover" (feeding my addiction) and found a file called "One REM U2 cover". I downloaded it to see how my beloved and irreverent REM would treat this overly self important song. And then Stipe's vocals started and I was mesmerised.

Stipe treats the lyrics with his usual abandon. Not through contempt, just due to his completely terrible memory. He mixes up the lines so that they don't rhyme and any semblance of sense is completely lost. But he sings it with such conviction that I immediately fell in love with it. I remember picking up the guitar, wanting to learn how to play it simply because I loved it so much.

What I didn't find out till much later, when I saw the video on youtube, that this was only 2 members of REM. The rhythm section of this "cover" was being provided by Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton from U2. (Incidentally I wonder if Clayton pulled Mike Mills aside and said "sure, you're a good bass player, but you'll never be great unless you start wearing stupid suits." The song was performed/record in 1993, and it was around that time the Mills started wearing stupid suits of his own.)
So this put me in a great quandary. A song I hate, covered by a band that I love. Not only that, but I  like the cover. Even the "lepers" lyric is left, miraculously under the circumstances, untouched and it doesn't grate. How does that affect my feelings for the original? Should it?

The fact is, it did. By removing my irrational hatred of U2, and replacing it with my irrational love of REM, I gave the song itself (rather than any specific version) a second chance. I prefer the REM version, simply because I love Stipe's vocals, but I quite like the U2 One. Basically, I can listen to either version and really like it. My prejudices cancelled each other out.

 

It's still a stupid lyric, though.