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You searched for a hard rain - Page 2 of 88 - Cover Me

Five Good Covers: “Here Comes the Rain Again” (Eurythmics)

Posted by Hope Silverman at 9:00 am 2 Responses »

Nov 032022

The Mayflower Hotel was located at Central Park West between 61st and 62nd street in New York City. It was constructed in 1926 and stood for over seven decades before being demolished in 2004. It was not a fancy place (the New York Times called it “drab and brown”) and its sad, singular claim to fame was that Pat Sullivan, producer of the Felix the Cat cartoon lived there in the ’30s.

Even though it stood for nearly 80 years, the only acknowledgment of the hotel’s existence is a tiny plaque on a nearby bench on Broadway featuring this clinical and decidedly unromantic inscription:

The funding for these benches was provided in 1996 by The Mayflower Hotel

Whatever New York City office was responsible for the text on that plaque blew it. They opted for cold acknowledgment when they could have imbued that bench with magical, magnetic pop power forever. Here is what the plaque should have said:

In 1983, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox, the musicians collectively known as “Eurythmics” composed “Here Comes The Rain Again” during a stay at The Mayflower Hotel.” Continue reading »

Full Albums: The Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

Posted by Tom McDonald at 12:30 pm 1 Response »

Oct 142022

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

After watching all eight hours of Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, and another three hours of interviews with Jackson about the making of Get Back I had to put on A Hard Day’s Night to restore balance. I had to get back to a time when John Lennon was firing on all creative cylinders and Paul McCartney was slacking.

In early-to-mid 1964, Lennon was engaged, prolific, and self-confident enough that the Beatles finally released a full album with all original material: AHDN. No covers! All 13 tracks are Lennon–McCartney compositions, officially, but 10 of them are really Lennon’s. And they are all good to really good Lennon songs, too, except for the ones that are great, like “If I Fell” and the title track.

If McCartney’s contributions were few in number, two of them loom large in the catalog: “Can’t Buy Me Love” became the album’s first #1 single, while his ballad “And I Love Her” stands with McCartney’s best songs of any period. Mostly, though, Paul was not quite finding his stride in ‘64, much like John in the Get Back period.
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Nathaniel Rateliff Gets a Jazz Backing for “Famous Blue Raincoat” Cover

Posted by Ray Padgett at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Aug 252022

The first taste of all-star tribute album Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, James Taylor’s “Coming Back to You,” felt a bit underwhelming. The second, Nathaniel Rateliff’s just-released “Famous Blue Raincoat,” holds more promise. It also showcases why this is coming out on revered jazz label Blue Note Records, as Rateliff is backed not by his usual rave-up soul band the Night Sweats, but by a tight combo, including Bill Frisell on guitar and some beautiful solos by Immanuel Wilkins on alto saxophone. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Long Train Runnin'” (The Doobie Brothers)

Posted by Seuras Og at 11:00 am No Responses »

Jun 072022

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

Just how good a song is the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Runnin'”? No, I mean it–just how good is it? Yes, yes, I know the sun is shining and it feels like Spring At Last, but this song, y’know, isn’t it pure essence of get outside and dance? Unassailable on all fronts, it is the spirit of yeah, the unashamed shake yer head, shake yer hips of boogie, and from the casual shake of the wrist in the first few bars, it has defied its near-half-century age to infect me once again.

Tom Johnston should be revered for this song, rather than just being the bloke in the Doobies before Michael McDonald. Or, for that matter, the bloke in the Doobies after Michael McDonald. Or, indeed, with Michael McDonald, such has the revolving door of band membership been. But, however mighty was the McDonald-helmed version, and before his silver hair and tonsils became their calling card, the band had had a run of singles, all written and sung by Johnston, all instantly recognizable, if likewise all easily confused, being all cut from a similar cloth.
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Five Good Covers: “Midnight Train to Georgia” (Jim Weatherly)

Posted by Seuras Og at 1:00 pm 1 Response »

Mar 022021

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

If you live and die known for but one song, it better be a good one, and in “Midnight Train to Georgia” Jim Weatherly, who just died last month, wrote one of the best. The song is far and away best known in the iconic version by Gladys Knight. Never forgetting the Pips, for it is they who lift the song from merely great to transcendent. OK, the arrangement is pretty damn fine too, the orchestration and backing exuding all the desolation and disappointment of Amtrak by night. But it wasn’t always that way. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Fire and Rain” (James Taylor)

Posted by Hope Silverman at 1:30 pm 6 Responses »

Aug 282020

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

James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” is a perverse oddball of a song. On the one hand, it’s a comfortable, welcoming armchair, resoundingly easy on the ears with its sweet acoustic picking, memorable melody, and mellifluous vocal. On the other, it’s a harrowing tale of despair, loss and confusion with no real resolution. “Fire and Rain ” got as high as #3 on the Billboard pop chart in 1970, and though it didn’t hit the top spot, its success helped open the door for a veritable flood of like-minded soul-baring singer-songwriters, from Jackson Browne to Jim Croce and beyond.

The story behind “Fire and Rain” is a pretty well-trod one at this point. Each verse describes a particular period of Taylor’s late-’60s life story. The first verse addresses the suicide of an old friend, Susie Schnerr (referred to as “Suzanne” in the lyric), as does the last line of the chorus; “but I always thought that I’d see you again.” The second verse describes James’s own addiction to heroin. The third alludes to his time in a psychiatric hospital while being treated for depression; it includes a reference to the implosion of his band Flying Machine (which has frequently been misinterpreted as a reference to an actual plane crash).
Continue reading »