The Best Cover Songs of September 2026

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Sep 302026
 
best cover songs
The Alices — Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric cover)


A lo-fi garage rip through “Whole Wide World” by Chicago rockers The Alices (who—fact-check—only have one Alice, frontwoman Alice Strider). Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and doesn’t need to.

Bad Wolves — Jolene (Dolly Parton cover)

There’s a lot of drama around this one. A few years ago, alt-rock band Bad Wolves had a surprise hit with a cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” So they decided to strike again with “Jolene.” Best of all, Dolly Parton herself was planning to guest on it. Her manager wrote, “Dolly was a champion of artists pushing musical boundaries. She listened to the Bad Wolves arrangement of ‘Jolene’ weeks ago, gave it her full blessing and was incredibly excited to collaborate on it.” Alas, she died before she could record her vocals, and they released the cover—sans Dolly—in tribute, donating the proceeds to her Imagination Library. Continue reading »

My Morning Jacket and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band Team Up for Neil Young Cover

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Sep 172026
 
my morning jacket preservation hall jazz band

A new song from the upcoming Neil Young tribute Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, Vol. 2 – Out of the Blue, which comes out in November. This is a cover of “Like a Hurricane” by Kentucky rock band My Morning Jacket, featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Continue reading »

My Morning Jacket “Do It Again” with Steely Dan Cover at Red Rocks

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Aug 202025
 
My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket is on the road, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album, Z and at a recent gig at Red Rocks in Morrison, Colorado, busted out a cover of a Steely Dan classic.

After performing Z in its entirety, Jim James busted into “Do It Again,” from the Dan’s 1972 debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill. With an impressive light show and smoke machine, MMJ’s version remained pretty faithful to the original. You can watch fan-shot footage of the performance below.

The Red Rocks show was one of five shows on this tour that saw the band perform all of Z to mark it’s 20th anniversary and an upcoming deluxe reissue.

Lest you think My Morning Jacket has the market cornered on “Do It Again” covers, Smash Mouth covered the song on the soundtrack for the 2000 comedy Me, Myself and Irene, before appearing on the band’s greatest hits record.

The Best Cover Songs of April 2025

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Apr 302025
 
Cover Songs of April
Ben Harper — Ghost Dance (Patti Smith cover)

Hopefully a full recording will be released of the Carnegie Hall tribute to Patti Smith. Until then, there are a number of videos on YouTube. Best I’ve seen is Ben Harper doing “Ghost Dance,” Smith’s mesmerizing mediation from 1978’s Easter. Note Flea on bass and Dylan/Costello sideman Charlie Sexton on guitar. Continue reading »

My Morning Jacket and Preservation Hall Cover Cymande’s “Bra” at Weekend Festival

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Apr 072025
 

Pretty much every band now has some sort of a weekend getaway festival event on their yearly calendar and My Morning Jacket are no different. This past weekend, the band held their third annual “One Big Holiday” event, this time in Miramar Beach, Florida. The festival kicked off on Thursday, with MMJ taking the closing spot. After playing a few songs off their most recently released record, the band wrapped up the evening by inviting members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to join them on stage. After a performance of MMJ’s “Highly Suspicious,” the bands broke into a lovely version of British 1970’s funk band Cymande’s “Bra.” Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: What’s a cover that hits differently when the covering artist keeps the original lyrics?

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  5 Responses »
Jan 152025
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

cover of instrumental

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question:

What’s a cover that hits differently when the covering artist keeps the original lyrics?

Continue reading »

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