Jun 182025
 
phil spector's gun

“The Needle and the Damage Done” is one of Neil Young’s most obviously personal songs, infamously written about his friends he knew who used heroin and recorded before Crazy Horse lead singer Danny Whitten died of heroin. Released on his most successful record, Harvest, Young chose a live solo performance to include on that studio album instead of recording a proper studio version during either the Nashville or California sessions that made up that album.

Phil Spector’s Gun are a noisy Philadelphia rock quartet who put out their debut album in autumn 2023. For the b-side of their latest single, they’ve recorded a cover of “The Needle and the Damage Done.”

Their covers opens with a pretty faithful performance of the opening of the the song, only played on electric rather than acoustic. But, almost immediately, the full band kicks in, including what sounds like a small, detuned string section. The band performance is sloppy and noisy, very much in the spirit of the other side of Neil Young, the Crazy Horse/proto-grunge side. That string section, though – I don’t think there’s much in Neil’s catalogue as aggressively dissonant beyond his own guitar solos.

Lead singer Kevin Brusha sings the lyrics pretty straight, with a similar level of frailty to the original only with a different aesthetic. (There are no signs of folk music in this performance.) The original is quite short and Phil Spector’s Gun jam it out a little bit, as Neil might himself have done if he ever played an electric version. There’s a little bit of Time Fades Away or Tonight’s the Night to this performance, which is very fitting.

Jun 022025
 
Best Cover Songs of May
Chewy Rodriguez — Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift cover)

This beautiful performance aired on South Dakota Public Broadcasting and, as of this writing, has 81 views, half of which are mine. (To be fair, presumably more people saw it when it aired on actual TV). But this Sioux Falls singer-songwriters beautiful Taylor Swift cover deserves a far bigger audience. It’s simply done, no frills or gimmicks, but he sells the hell out of it. Continue reading »

May 142025
 

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, courtesy of staffer Hope Silverman:

What is your favorite cover of a deep cut?

Continue reading »

May 132025
 

Neil Young tribute albumIf you have an abiding interest in Neil Young, or regularly check in on this site, you have heard it by now: the new Neil Young tribute album is out. Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, Volume 1 has got some big names on board, and a confident, semi-official vibe about it (thanks in part to the subtitle, A Benefit for the Bridge School). Volume 2 is officially unannounced but said to be forthcoming from Killphonic Records.

We’ve been spreading the news of the project in recent months by looking at each of the singles released ahead of the album. But enough teasing: the record is here, and it’s time to opine.

Let’s jump right to the point: Volume 1 is a solid collection to kick off the series. Long may it run.

Is there room for improvement in Volume 2? Of course, and we’ve got some suggestions.
Continue reading »

May 052025
 
fiona apple heart of gold cover

Over 50 years after its release, and hundreds of songs later, “Heart of Gold” remains Neil Young’s biggest hit. It is his only #1 and far and away his most streamed song. As a result, it’s far and away his most covered song as well. But it’s not that often that it’s covered by a fellow songwriter of…well, similar repute.

Fiona Apple is, in many ways, the opposite kind of songwriter than Neil Young, at least in the sense that she is either nowhere near as prolific as Young—or at least far more careful as to what songs she will release. In a career spanning nearly 30 years, she has released only five studio albums. Young has released 45 in his nearly 60-year career doesn’t even count the archives releases including multiple other full albums he scrapped. But their careers do have some similarities. They are famous for being artistically uncompromising. As others have noted, early commercial success has helped both of them chart their own courses. And they have both, at times, had reputations for being prickly.

So even though Apple has waited nearly 30 years to record her own cover of a Neil Young song, there’s something fitting about it. Apple is a pianist so she replaces the guitar riff and the harmonica melody with her piano. She mostly sings the melody the same, making only tiny little changes. She’s accompanied by only drums and bass until the second repetition of the instrumental hook, where she’s joined by a string section echoing the pedal steel. She adds additional vocals for the final chorus.

It’s a faithful cover but it’s unmistakably Fiona Apple. She has indeed made the song her own.

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 »