May 102024
 

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

You Are My Sunshine

“You Are My Sunshine” is an old warhorse of a song. It’s been around for so long and in so many forms as to, now, be quite beyond categorization. Until recently it has been unfairly parked under hokey old cornball music for old folk, even if the many cheesier versions out there have deserved and drawn such scorn. I know that I thought it dreadful old nonsense, until I was recently forced to accept and re-evaluate it as a song of some pathos and persuasion. You may still share my earlier view, so I put it to you: Can any of these covers shift that opinion?

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Dec 152023
 

Follow all our Best of 2023 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

I like to think that badass lady in the artwork up there (done by our own Hope Silverman!) embodies the spirit of this year’s list. Not that they’re all CBGB-style punk songs—though there are a couple—but in her devil-may-care attitude. “Who says I shouldn’t do a hardcore cover of the Cranberries? A post-punk cover of Nick Drake? A hip-hop cover of The Highwaymen? Screw that!”

As with most good covers, the 50 covers we pulled out among the thousands we listened to bring a healthy blend of reverence and irreverence. Reverence because the artists love the source material. Irreverence because they’re not afraid to warp it, bend it, mold it in their own image. A few of the songs below are fairly obscure, but most you probably already know. Just not like this.

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Apr 152013
 

Though one might associate “You Are My Sunshine” with a cheery delivery, it’s not altogether uncommon to find darker takes on it. After all, the lyrics (anywhere beyond the chorus) are more full of despair than the song’s titular sunshine. There are plenty of artists that will bring out the minor chords or less upbeat vocals than one might expect, but it’s a song that too few ultimately take to its fullest potential. At its lightest, it’s a piece saturated with melancholy; at its darkest and heaviest, at its most transformative, you’ll find Bent Knee. Continue reading »