The Best Cover Songs of August & September 2025

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Sep 302025
 
Best Cover Songs
Benson Boone — When We Were Young (Adele cover)

Benson Boone gets clowned on, but dude can sing (and, yes, backflip). “When We Were Young” is not exactly an easy song to nail. But, at a tour stop in Columbus, he did just that—one of many covers he’s been doing on the road.

BRAINSTORM — The Boys Of Summer (Don Henley cover)

Every summer comes, inevitably, more “Boys of Summer” covers. This metal-ish version comes from German power-metal vets BRAINSTORM (all caps so you know they’re serious). Singer Andy B. Franck says: “Even though ‘The Boys Of Summer’ deals with rather nostalgic themes of ‘summer love’ and the memory of a past relationship, for me – at the time a 13-year-old – it was, beyond the metal anthems of the 80s, a great song that I associated with summer, girls and the corresponding feeling for many, many years…Even today, this song still evokes great memories for me, and since it’s also a song about questioning the past, this track fits perfectly into our times.” Continue reading »

Sweet Nobody Release Three Distinct Joanna Newsom Covers

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Aug 072025
 
Sweet Nobody

I feel like it’s safe to say Joanna Newson is an acquired taste. Though we’ve written about a number of covers of her work here at Cover Me, there aren’t all that many overall. Her output is rather small but my guess is that the harpist’s voice is just too, um, distinct for a lot of people. But if you can get over that, she’s a great songwriter with a playful side. (And she plays the harp! One of the cooler instruments.)

California indie poppers Sweet Nobody are here to help neophytes appreciate Newsom’s songs. They’ve covered three songs from her somehow 21-year-old debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender. And unlike that original album, which has a very consistent style, Sweet Nobody have chosen to perform the three tracks in differing musical arrangements. Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of May 2024

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May 312024
 
Bat for Lashes
Bambie Thug – Zombie (The Cranberries cover)

This month, Bambie Thug represented Ireland in Eurovision, coming in sixth (the country’s highest placement since 2000). Shortly before the finals, they released this cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie”amidst criticism of their outspokenness about the devastation in Gaza. The top YouTube comment puts it well: “The significance of Bambie choosing to cover this song will not be lost on anyone in Ireland or the UK, or many places outside them. It’s just about the most impactful call for peace an Irish person can give, and they’ve done it as well as anyone ever has.” Continue reading »

Rachel Sumner Dives Deep with Joanna Newsom’s “Colleen”

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Aug 022022
 
Rachel Sumner Joanna Newsom Colleen

Harpist/singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom’s debut record, The Milk-Eyed Mender, has inspired a number of memorable covers. But look ahead through the rest of of Newsom’s work—post-2006, frankly—and notable versions become far harder to come by. Newsom’s move from Milk-Eyed to her sophomore record, Ys, and beyond involved a series of especially massive creative leaps: modest folk songs to epic orchestral suites, and, later, to triple LPs. Newsom’s work has only gotten richer and more fascinating, the lyrics denser and the arrangements knottier — but, at least based on past precedent, she’s also seemingly grown more… uncover-able.

It’s refreshing and impressive, then, to come across a cover of not only a post-Milk-Eyed Mender tune, but a Newsom acolyte who has made their own creative in-roads to her later work. This would be singer-songwriter Rachel Sumner, who, alongside her band Traveling Light, has shared an artful new cover of Joanna Newsom’s “Colleen.” Continue reading »

Sarah Jarosz Breaks Out the Covers Live in Houston

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Feb 012012
 

Coming off her well received 2011 album Follow Me Down, Sarah Jarosz is squeezing in a mini-tour before returning  to Boston to complete the 2nd half of her junior year at New England Conservatory. During her stop at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston, TX, the new face of Americana picked and strummed a handful of fantastic covers throughout her set. Continue reading »

Birkwin Jersey Reconstructs Joanna Newsom’s “Sprout and the Bean”

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Dec 052011
 

UK-based electronic musician Graeme Coop aka Birkwin Jersey has a knack for building soundscapes from snippets and samples from YouTube clips. Recently he was featured on NPR’s World Cafe Next promoting his first release on his DIY collective label Absent Records with two friends in the United States. Continue reading »

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