Five Good Covers: I Want You Back (The Jackson 5)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 5:00 pm 6 Responses »

May 172013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

“I Want You Back” was such a perfectly written song it would have been a hit no matter who did it first (Gladys Knight & the Pips were early candidates, as was Diana Ross), but the world lucked out by discovering it through the Jackson 5. Michael Jackson, still a couple years away from his teens, delivered a vocal Dave Marsh called “just beyond belief, nuanced and knowing but at the same time, young and innocent.” Backed by a musical track that combined the sounds of Motown and Sly & the Family Stone with a double dose of sunshine, Michael and his brothers were never going to miss the target, but who knew their arrow would embed itself so deeply in the bull’s-eye?
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Five Good Covers: Stagolee (traditional)

Posted by Jordan Becker at 5:00 pm 1 Response »

May 132013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

“Stagolee” or “Staggerlee,” or “Stack-O-Lee,” or other variants, is the musical retelling of a cold-blooded murder. Some trace the song to roots in English murder ballads, but it seems pretty clear that the precipitating event that led to this much-recorded story was the killing of William Lyons by “Stag” Lee Shelton at the Bill Curtis Saloon in St. Louis at Christmas time in 1895. Lyons’ death certificate is reproduced above.

By all accounts, Shelton was a “bad man,” a pimp and gambler, and he and Lyons were at the saloon, drunk and arguing over politics or some such, when Lyons made what probably didn’t feel like a fatal mistake — he took Shelton’s Stetson hat, possibly after Shelton had crushed Lyons’ derby. Accordingly, Shelton shot him dead. Rather than lead to calls to ban handguns, this seemingly pedestrian, if horrific, event (it was apparently just one of 5 similar murders that day in St. Louis) sparked a legend that has been recorded more than 400 times, in virtually every style imaginable.
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Five Good Covers: Sam Stone (John Prine)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 12:00 pm 1 Response »

May 082013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

“Sam Stone,” from John Prine’s self-titled 1971 debut album, is considered one of the most depressing songs ever written. We’re not talking my-baby-left-me depressing here, understand; this is a song about a wounded war veteran suffering from PTSD and a heroin addiction, who grows remote from his family and winds up dying alone, with a chorus couplet so devastating (“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes / Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose”) that even Johnny Cash flinched at it, altering the words in his own cover. When the Man in Black can’t bring himself to sing your lyrics, you know you’ve touched a nerve.
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Five Good Covers: Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 5:00 pm 6 Responses »

Apr 302013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

1961′s Blue Hawaii marked the start of Elvis Presley’s long and painful slide down the dull razor blade of mediocrity. The movie has little plot, bland acting, and inane dialogue that sounds more suited to the romantic Anakin Skywalker (“You wanna know something – on you, wet is my favorite color”). Meanwhile, its soundtrack featured emetic material like “Rock-A-Hula Baby” and “Ito Eats.” But we’re ready to forgive all the minute we hear “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Sure, it took a few takes to get it right (give this outtake a listen if you’re in a spot where you won’t get in trouble), but you can’t deny Presley’s performance here, and it would be flat out wrong to try.
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Five Good Covers: Where Is My Mind? (Pixies)

Posted by Brent Rydin at 5:00 pm 2 Responses »

Apr 122013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

There’s a feel to the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” that can be hard to pinpoint. There’s the Caribbean element to it, the literal storytelling of swimming in the ocean with sea creatures, but there’s no island feel to go with the lyrics; there’s the tricks, the spinning, the looming possibility of one’s empty head collapsing, and yet none of the nauseous dread that these images evoke. Instead, fittingly, the feel is one of distance – everything is there, all those lyrics and thoughts laid out, and yet they’re not what the song is about. It’s about a theme, a feeling, an environment, a difficult-to-pinpoint quality that brings the listener in. It’s a song that’s easy to cover and yet incredibly difficult to cover well, a song where a good cover is measured in its ability to capture something intangible.

Some artists, however, manage to capture it (or something close to it), and leave us not just enjoying a song but wondering the very question posed in the title. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 5:00 pm No Responses »

Mar 292013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

One day in 1949, Hank Williams passed a scrap of paper to fellow songwriter Jimmy Rule and asked, “Do you think people will understand what I’m trying to say when I say this?” Rule took one look at what was on the paper and told Williams not to worry. With good reason – he had just read a verse from “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” a song that Elvis Presley would later call “probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard.” Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: Cortez the Killer (Neil Young)

Posted by Sean Balkwill at 6:00 pm 12 Responses »

Mar 222013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

In 1975, Neil Young released Zuma, one of several albums he recorded in the ’70s which contained a single song that pretty much eclipsed the rest of the album. In Zuma’s case, it was “Cortez the Killer,” a three-chorder rumored to have been written to make it easier for Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampredo to play along on rhythm guitar. Young hadn’t played with Crazy Horse for several years, and during that time Sampredo had taken the place of founding guitarist Danny Whitten, who had died of a drug and alcohol overdose. Clocking in at over seven minutes, “Cortez” was originally even longer — it famously had to be faded out because tape ran out during the session. (Upon learning the song’s last verse didn’t get recorded, Young shrugged and said, “I never liked that verse anyway.”) Bands who have covered the song have been been tacking minutes onto it ever since. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: Horse With No Name (America)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 5:00 pm No Responses »

Feb 152013

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

A song about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid. – Randy Newman

You’re in the desert. You’ve got nothing else to do. NAME THE FREAKIN’ HORSE. – Richard Jeni

If an 8-track, shag-carpeted Frisbee could sing, it would be America. – Cracked.com

The band America and their lyrics to their breakout hit “Horse with No Name” may have been fodder for jokes, and they may have sounded so much like Neil Young that Neil’s own father called to congratulate him on the song’s success, but America (the group)’s easygoing vibe and inscrutable story were just what America (the country) wanted to hear in 1972, and the record shot to number one before its author, Dewey Bunnell, was out of his teens. Continue reading »

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