The Best Cover Songs of March 2025

Cher — Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn cover)

Cher’s pushing 80, but, as seen most recent on the SNL 50th concert, she can still command a stage like nobody’s business. At the recent Love Rocks benefit concert in NYC, she reprised her ‘90s “Walking in Memphis” cover, complete with full Elvis costume, pompadour very much included.

Dååth ft. Paul Masvidal from Cynic – Run (Air cover)

A heavy-metal cover of the least heavy group of all time (they are French, after all): Air. Dååth (you “know it’s heavy with that punctuation in the name) writes: “Our version of “Run” has been a long time coming. It’s a creepy, weird song I’ve wanted to cover since I first heard it… This is a weird song. If you haven’t heard it, listen to the original, then ours. To do it justice, we needed an unconventional mix that could also go full metal. Gautier Serre, of Igorrr, was the obvious choice. If he can handle Igorrr, he can handle this—and being French, he already knew the song. The result is truly unique. If you’re expecting pure extreme metal, you might be disappointed—and that’s fine, because we do what we want.”

Franz Ferdinand — Toxic (Britney Spears cover)

Franz Ferdinand covering “Toxic” sounds like something we would have posted in the blog’s earliest days in the late 2000s. How did it take this long to happen? Honestly I kinda wish they didn’t have the full orchestra there so they could take it full post-punk raunch, but after all these years Alex Kapranos’ winking sneer comes through clear as ever.

Fontaines D.C. — Can You Feel My Heart / Heart-Shaped Box (Bring Me the Horizon / Nirvana cover)

Speaking on their decision to cover the Bring Me The Horizon song for their Triple J “Like a Version” session, the band’s Conor Curley said, “I think the sound of that song, the kind of electronic elements and just the general vibe reflects stuff we were touching on on our last album ‘Romance’ so it kind of seemed like a good place to start. And it’s a moody, beautiful song.” They mashed it up with bits of Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box.”

Galactic and Irma Thomas — How Glad I Am (Nancy Wilson cover)

Irma Thomas, the “Soul Queen of New Orleans,” is 84 years old and going strong. I saw her come out and join the Rolling Stones at Jazzfest last year, singing her own “Time Is on My Side,” which they’d famously covered in the ‘60s. Now she’s teaming up with NOLA jam-funk band Galactic for a full album, Audience With The Queen, out next month. This is a cover of 1964 song by Nancy Wilson (that’s the soul singer, not the Heart singer).

Jake Xerxes Fussell — Close My Eyes (Arthur Russell cover)

Jake says: “I’ve long felt partial to the country waltz as a song form. I enjoy playing them. And like so many of us record listeners, I became intrigued a number of years ago with the posthumously released recordings of the beautiful composer/cellist/singer/producer Arthur Russell. “Close My Eyes” naturally became something I’d slip into my shows every now and then. People began requesting it, and in time it became something of a setlist fixture and it seems to have developed a life of its own there.”

Japanese Breakfast & SASAMI — I Love You Always Forever (Donna Lewis cover)

Stream here (starts at 1:36:00)
Singer-author Michele Zauner said of the song, “Every time I hear it, I feel exhilarated, and it puts me in a good mood. I wanted to do something a little bit more melancholy, since that’s the theme of the album, but this is just its own separate little bop. I guess there’s a lot of longing in there… It’s just so well-written and moves so well that you really don’t need much for you to feel the way that it moves.”

Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo – Golden Mirror (Jackson C Frank cover)

Former Bad Seed Mick Harvey has teamed up with Mexican artist Amanda Acevedo for the forthcoming Golden Mirrors (The Uncovered Sessions Vol. 1), an album covering cult-hero singer-songwriter Jackson C. Frank. No, the first single isn’t “Blues Run the Game,” the song everyone covers (though that’s on there). It’s the deeper-cut title track. Harvey explains, “All the original recordings are just one or two guitars with singing and Frank’s later songs are only available as home recordings, non-studio demos or live. So the possibilities of expanding the songs through arrangements were huge.”

SEBY — I Want to Know What Love Is (Foreigner cover)

This one came via the Cover Me inbox, sent from George Centeno who records as SEBY. It’s a house-pop cover of recent Rock Hall inductee’s eternal power-ballad “I Want to Know What Love Is.” A perfect song choice for the genre, and, underneath the modern electronic production, there beats a yacht-rock heart.

Weakened Friends — Torn (Ednaswap/Natalie Imbruglia cover)

I saw Weakened Friends open for Jack White last month in Boston. They were an extremely fun and high-energy local rock band that the crowd loved. Naturally, though, as an opening act their own songs were largely unfamiliar to the audience. So people exploded where they played an extremely loud, distorted version of a song every did know: “Torn.” They said it was such a live favorite, in fact, that they need to properly record it.

The Best of the Rest

Bibi Club — Orgiastic (Stereolab cover)

Cemetery Skyline — I Drove All Night (Cyndi Lauper cover)

Good Kid – I’m Like a Bird (Nelly Furtado cover)

Grace Bergere feat. Thurston Moore – All Tomorrow’s Parties (Velvet Underground cover)

Jasmine.4.T ft Julien Baker — Toxicity (System of a Down cover)

Kelsea Ballerini — I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool (Barbara Mandrell)

Little Falls Trophy — All Kinds of Time (Fountains of Wayne cover)

Loren Kramer — hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have but I have it (Lana Del Rey cover)

The Mary Tyler Whores — Whip It (Devo cover) download

Michael Sarian — Glory Box (Portishead cover)

My Transparent Eye — Candy Says (Velvet Underground cover)

Role Model — Nothing New (Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers cover) download

Rose City Band (feat. Sanae Yamada) – Hello Sunshine (Relatively Clean Rivers cover)

Tess & The Details – Maniac (Flashdance cover)

Weyes Blood — Shilo (Neil Diamond cover)

Winter in May — Stay (Rihanna cover)

Yung Mo$h — Not Like Us (Kendrick Lamar cover)

Check out previous months’ best covers lists.

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