My favorite Radiantly Militant, NY Librarian, Melissa blogs about her picks for great cover songs and tosses me the gauntlet. I love her choices, especially the Cowboy Junkies version of "Sweet Jane." The Cowboys kind of made that Velvets classic their own.
There are so many great covers to consider, Janis Joplin doing Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobbie McGee." The Who's version of Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues." Elvis Costello's version of Nick Lowe's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding." Ike and Tina Turner's sizzling version of John Fogarty's "Proud Mary."
Anyway, here's my stab at four great covers with my trenchant commentary:
1. Joe Cocker's version of the Beatles "With a Little Help from My Friends." This was kind of a throwaway for Ringo on Sgt. Peppers. Cocker channels the great Ray Charles on this spittle-flinging version at Woodstock. It's a classic example of taking a song and making it something else. VP Spiro Agnew thought it was all about the illicit drugs - and maybe he was right.
The Beatles were big fans of Motown but when they tried to emulate that sound it came out as what Paul McCartney dubbed "Rubber Soul." Joe is all grit, spit, blood and beer. The music hall meets some kind of gospel apotheosis. By the way, Jimmy Page plays lead guitar on Cocker's studio version of the song.
This YouTube is captioned so you can see Joe actually re-wrote the lyrics. Who knew? No wonder I always loved his version best. Hat Tip to my favorite L.A. Artist/Clairvoyant Kris for alerting me to this closed captioned version.
2. Patti Smith's cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria." Patti adds some of her own lyrics. You can't keep a good poet down! Her version starts with maybe the greatest first line ever written in a rock song: "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." 2000 years of bible-thumping up in smoke. Certainly for me 7 years of indoctrination at St. Joseph's couldn't hold a candle to the burning flames of unbridled rock and roll ecstasy. Lenny Kaye's trashy, garage punk guitar is a weapon of mass destruction.
This clip is from a film called the Blank Generation. The images and words don't match up but it's all in glorious black and white, so what the heck. Nice shots of a young gum-chewing, leather-jacketed Smith.
3. Bob Dylan wrote a powerful little song for Sam Peckinpah's excellent outlaw epic, "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid," called "Knocking on Heaven's Door." You must check out the movie just to see Slim Pickens walking out to a little lake with a bullet in his gut, breathing his last, to the strains of Dylan's superb, understated masterpiece.
This cover version by Guns and Roses at the Freddie Mercury tribute basically takes that delicate little song and murders it. They make it into a great big arena sing a long - about giving up the ghost! There is something exhilarating about it all. Slash rips off one his best lyrical guitar solos, wielding his double-barreled Gibson guitar like a howitzer. There's a bank of Marshall stacks cranked to 11, Axl Rose with his bandana wrapped just a little too tight, the hot spandex-clad backup singers shaking and shimmying. A stadium full of crazed rock and roll fans going berserk. Rock and Roll Theater.
4. And my last pick is Joe Strummer singing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." This clip is from Julien Temple's BioPic about Strummer "The Future is Unwritten."
This is it. Really. Nothing else to say...