The 40 Best John Lennon Covers Ever

Head back to the beginning.

10. Johnny Harris — Give Peace a Chance

Where the original is more stomp and holler, this cover takes a funkier approach. Both versions rely on call and response with some supporting vocals, but here they are more choral than chanting. Harris builds on the primarily drum accompaniment of the original with a jazz guitar and keyboard verging on organ. Drums do come back to prominence towards the back half of the cover, accompanied by more traditional orchestral sounds like a flute and strings, before the chorus and groove come back to close out the song. — Sara Stoudt

9. Aloe Blacc — Steel and Glass

John Lennon was not one to be cagey about the subject of his songs, but when it came to “Steel and Glass,” that’s the path he chose. “It really isn’t about anybody,” he insisted. “I’m loathe to tell you this, because it spoils the fun. I would sooner everybody think, ‘Who’s it about?’ and try and piece it together.” The general consensus was that the song was about Allen Klein, what with the lines about the subject’s “L.A. tan and New York walk” (John’s response: “Yeah, but Allen Klein doesn’t have an L.A. tan, does he?”), but John stood his ground. “I was trying to write something nasty,” he allowed, “and I really didn’t feel that nasty, but there’s some interesting musical stuff on it.”

That interesting musical stuff was what Aloe Blacc took on. In his live cover of “Steel and Glass,” the song’s subject is less of a draw than his performance. Blacc eliminates the harshness of the original and adds rich soul – his first held note (you’ll know it when you hear it) lets the crowd know that this is a whole new creation. Well, not wholly new – he kept the instrumental nod to “How Do You Sleep?”, another of John’s attack songs. — Patrick Robbins

8. Sinead O’Connor — Mind Games

Your mind plays tricks on you. Leading you astray, taking you to places that you didn’t want to go. Other people play Mind Games on you. You hope for good faith and what you get are petty attempts to make them look good at your expense. Your own attempts to replicate that behaviour only make yourself feel worse. Only a few good people, like Kris Kristofferson, supported you when you needed it. All you wanted was love.

Sinead O’Connor’s version of “Mind Games” is so raw that it can be difficult to listen to. Recorded early in her career but not released until much later, the innocence is drowned in foreshadowing. She lets go a near shriek before the phrase “Make Love, Not War,” struggling to contain her emotions. The effect on the listener can be overwhelming. — Mike Tobyn

7. Sam Phillips — Gimme Some Truth

In 2000, Elvis Costello released a list of his 500 favorite albums. Sam Phillips’ (that’s the singer, not the Sun producer) 1994 record Martinis & Bikinis was on it. Five years later, Tom Waits released a list of 28 albums he can’t live without. There, again: Martinis & Bikinis. He called her “Kurt Weill with a revolver,” then later, for good measure, “Dusty Springfield via Marianne Faithfull with a dash of Jackie DeShannon, but very much her own woman.” Phillips wrote every song on Martinis & Bikinis save one, the closing track, “Gimme Some Truth.” On it, you can hear what wowed Costello and Waits so much. Reverbed-out guitar mixes with trip-hop electronics in the fore with her voice in the distance, like a distorted echo. — Ray Padgett

6. R.E.M. — #9 Dream

Even if it wasn’t so indicated in the title, it would come as no surprise to the uninitiated that a dream inspired “#9 Dream.” Languid and hazy, it felt like it came from a half-asleep scramble to get that dream down on paper before it got pulled back to the land of Nod. R.E.M.’s cover is very faithful to the song’s fuzzy, clouded roots, with the exception of Michael Stipe’s vocals, strong and clear. Trivia: This is the only studio track Bill Berry recorded with R.E.M. between his 1997 retirement and the band’s dissolution in 2011. One more reason for R.E.M. fans to listen to this and ask, “Was it just a dream?” — Patrick Robbins

5. Maximo Park — Isolation

Yes, it’s unrecognizable. And yes, it’s only one minute and 14 seconds long. But Maximo Park’s radical 2005 reinvention of “Isolation” is a stunning achievement. The Newcastle (UK) band turn the intimate Plastic Ono Band classic into a taught and speedy slice of indie-rock, all rhythmic intensity, angular guitars, and angsty vocals that are perfectly in keeping with their sublime early hit “Apply Some Pressure.” Most pleasing is the way bowler-hatted singer Paul Smith is tense and pent-up on the verses to create a neurotic and almost sinister atmosphere, before exploding on the middle-eight: “I don’t expect you to understand…” Hey, maybe it’s not so different from the original. — Adam Mason

4. Marianne Faithfull — Working Class Hero

Here by right, rather than via any rose-tinted remembrance of this recently deceased singer. If Lennon sounded accepting, if slightly bitter, Faithfull is positively livid. Far from the stripped-back trad-folk style Lennon adopted, Faithfull fills her arrangement with forbidding synths and relentless something-wicked-this-way-comes beats. Rather than Lennon’s reportage, Faithful spits out the words, with an extra f-bomb tacked in along the way. The irony, of course, is that, arguably, neither fitted the titular description, Lennon the most middle class of the Beatles, and Faithfull the convent-educated daughter of a Countess. Be that as it may, she instils the lyrics with a venom that has seldom, if ever, been bettered. Definitely one of the highlights from her breakthrough release, 1979’s Broken English. — Seuras Og

3. Donny Hathaway — Jealous Guy

Donny Hathaway’s take on Lennon’s “Jealous Guy,” (appearing on Hathaway’s 1972 Live album) is amazing, partly because it shows the variety that Lennon’s songs could contain. Here, the song grooves in a way that the original does not. While Lennon pled for forgiveness in his recording, Hathaway shows a bit of resistance; perhaps he’s a jealous guy and he knows he can’t stop it. That’s just the way it’s going to be. He’s sorry, but he can’t promise it won’t happen again.

And then there’s the personal side of the song. The tragedy of Hathaway’s death, and the struggle in the years preceding it, add a deep sadness to the proceedings. Knowing how much Hathaway would struggle with the mental illness that would eventually take his life, one can hear the push/pull in his voice incredibly clearly in this recording. That title line, which seems almost like an aside—“I’m just a jealous guy”—contains a world of hurt, shame and deep pain on both sides of this conversation. — Luke Poling

2. Regina Spektor — Real Love

“I thought you said no Beatles songs!” True, that is the way “Real Love” is best-known today. It’s right there in the Wikipedia headline: “Real Love (Beatles song).” But the song started life as a John Lennon solo demo, recorded in 1979. Not only that, it was actually released that way first, on the 1988 soundtrack Imagine: John Lennon. The other three Beatles didn’t add their parts for another seven years after the song had been released. So, for our purposes, we’re counting “Real Love” as a Lennon solo song.

All those versions, though, pale in comparison to Regina Spektor’s. It opens with layered vocals, heralding a grand production, then pivots. It’s in fact a quiet piano ballad, simple and spare, with no bombast. But her beautiful vocal sells the hell out of it, and when those other vocals finally rejoin at the end, it enters another stratosphere. Had he released it at the time—and had it sounded anything like this, rather than the posthumous cobbling-together most know it as now—it would be considered a Lennon classic. — Ray Padgett

1. Billy Valentine — Watching the Wheels

For those old enough, there are few songs as poignant as “Watching the Wheels,” a posthumous single issued after the ex-Beatle had been shot to death. Deemed somewhat slight at the time, it packs a whole lot more punch than it gets credit for, with Lennon effectively outlining the reasons for his move away from the limelight and into cozy domesticity. Billy Valentine somehow manages to transform the message, having you believe the trajectory in the opposite direction, these wheels perhaps conveying him away, rather than being idly observed from the upper floors of the Dakota building.

Valentine is a true veteran, originally one half of the Valentine Brothers, with their original version of “Money’s Too Tight to Mention.” Nowadays he is a classy covers artist, working mainly in a jazz-blues-soul hybrid, as featured here. Gone is the pastoral melody and hammered dulcimer accompaniment, as here it is a punchy Latino blue touch paper, certainly within the verses. — Seuras Og

Check out more installments in our monthly ‘Best Covers Ever’ series, including Lady Gaga, Kate Bush, The Beatles, and more.

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