Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.
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:
If 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 »
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.
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 »
Neil Young wrote his best-selling album Harvest while convalescing from a back issue on his brand new ranch in northern California. When he purchased the ranch, the care-taking couple stayed on to tend it for him. Famously, he wrote “Old Man” about the husband of the couple. The song was the second single from the album, his second Top 5 hit in a row and one of only 3 Top 5 hits he ever had in the US.
Stephen Marley is one of Bob Marley’s many children and one of four who used to make up the Melody Makers. As you might imagine about a cover by a Marley, Stephen’s version is a reggae version. But he keeps some of the country elements of the original, most notably the pedal-steel guitar—not an instrument you expect in a reggae music. For the first 10 seconds, before Marley’s voice comes in, it’s prominent enough you think it might be country.Continue reading »