Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking” first broke free as 1965 broke into 1966, becoming a worldwide smash in the January of ’66, at least in the world as then existed, the USA and the UK. In truth, it did pretty well everywhere else as well, with Europe, Australia, Singapore and Mexico all loving the sentiment. Writer Lee Hazlewood had based “Boots” on a line of dialogue Nancy’s Dad, Frank, had spoken in the comedy western 4 For Texas, so who better than her daughter to sing it? With the Wrecking Crew team of crack session players in attendance, the song is chiefly notable for the quarter tone walking descent of the bass line, provided by Chuck Berghofer. Indeed, most of the well over 300 covers replicate and repeat this, such is the shorthand of the song.
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
It’s hard to remember where 1980 Ozzy Osbourne was (even if you’re not Ozzy Osbourne). When he released his first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, expectations could not have been much lower. His last few albums with Black Sabbath saw him flabby and uninspired, vocally and otherwise. He was drinking and drugging at a literally unbelievable rate (the discovery that he’s a genetic mutant was still years away), and Black Sabbath had just cause to fire him. But he still knew how to put together a band. And when he found a five-foot-seven, 105-pound genius of a guitarist in Randy Rhoads, he assured that his own star would shine for a few decades more.
“Crazy Train” features not one but two hall of fame riffs from Rhoads, and Osbourne singing lyrics that could have made him sound like a hippie in another context (“Maybe it’s not too late / To learn how to love and forget how to hate”). But ohhhhh, that context! Bob Daisley, who played bass and claims lyrical credit, said, “As a child, I remember the feeling of fear. I knew Ozzy would like that [concept] because he felt like that, too, having been through it himself. He was kind of frightened about the threat of World War III and how we, as young people, had inherited these troubles, influenced by the threat of nuclear holocaust throughout our lives.” Years later, Ozzy would elaborate: “To me the ultimate sin is nuclear weapons. This is the ultimate sin. I don’t know about Ozzy Osbourne being crazy. Don’t you think these lunatics are crazier, building these bombs to blow us all [up]?” Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Kris Kristofferson’s resume may be one of the most remarkable documents of 20th century music. With his passing earlier this week at the age of 88, it was de rigueur for all In Memoriam pieces to bring it up. The man was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a Golden Gloves boxer, and a prizewinning short story writer. He was a US Army veteran, a helicopter pilot, and an award-winning actor. He could quote William Blake from memory, and he could rip Toby Keith a blistered new one. And, of course, he gifted the world with truly classic songs, plain poetry that dazzled in its simplicity and its emotional heft. He truly was, as he wrote in “The Pilgrim Chapter 33,” a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.
“I’m for anything that gets you through the night,” said Frank Sinatra in a 1963 interview with Playboy, “be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.” Kristofferson, struggling to finish writing a song in the Gulf of Mexico, came back to that line and used it as the linchpin for “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” The song was about a one-night stand and therefore wore controversy on its back like a target. But the words were so plainspoken and intimate, the need far more naked than the girl, that people fell over themselves running to cover the story of a man all alone with his heart, no matter who else was in the room.
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Merle Travis may have brought “Sixteen Tons” into the world, but it was Tennessee Ernie Ford who made it immortal. The song’s arrangement – clarinets didn’t often get the spotlight, but one sure did here – was spare and distinctive. Ford’s bass baritone and his finger-snapping, both casual and menacing, hooked listeners in both the pop and country worlds, taking the song to number one on both charts. In a 1960 TV appearance together, Travis told Ford, “The song never amounted to much until you sung it.” Ford replied, “I never amounted to much until I sung it, either.”
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Just what is is about the songs of the ’60s that gives them such legs? Are they that amazingly good? Did they appear on enough soundtracks that they embedded themselves in my brainpan? Or is that just my fantasy, born out of a familiarity as long as the life of the songs?
“Light My Fire.” Perfect example. The song started life in L.A.s proto-underground, written and performed by the Doors, one of many groups plying their trade on the strip at the bars, seedy and otherwise, dotted along its trajectory. Jak Holzman, president of Elektra Records (they’d signed the Doors’ friendly rivals Love), liked what he heard enough to give them a contract. Shortly after, they moved to the studio, recording “Light My Fire” and the rest of their debut and eponymous album fifty-eight years ago this week.
Released in April of 1967, in an edit of the full-length version, the “Light My Fire” single spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard chart, getting a further boost when Jose Feliciano delivered the first cover, itself a top-five hit. Over the years, that original version has seen it regularly populate various best-of lists, helping it attain platinum sales by 2018.
Via many of the saccharine cover versions that followed swift behind the Doors’ own rendition, arguably the plight of any perfect song construction, it has been latterly seen as some MOR staple, slipping further and further away from the original menace inherent. Pity. Second Hand Songs shows upwards of 310 versions, and not all of these are weird, cheesy cabaret staples. (You want cheesy? Try Nancy Sinatra, or Shirley Bassey, or the New Jordal Swingers. You want weird? Well, you couldn’t get much weirder than Mae West……) Thankfully, we found five that are not. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
“It doesn’t sound that great when I’m singing it myself. Why don’t we make it a duet?”
According to Ken Caillat, producer of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, when Christine McVie said that to Lindsey Buckingham, it proved to be the key to making “Don’t Stop” the song it is today. With the two of them exchanging vocals, compressed so much they almost sounded alike, and McVie playing a jaunty tack piano, they make the song so uplifting you’d never know it was about the end of Christine’s relationship with bassist John McVie. The Guardian called it one of the band’s five best songs, saying that “its cantering rhythm and chorus are so impossibly, infectiously buoyant, the song so flawless, that it cancels out the unhappiness that provoked it.” Continue reading »
