Monday, June 21

Two Rolling Stones covers.

Sananda Maitreya (née Terence Trent D'Arby) covering "Angie"




The Sundays covering "Wild Horses"




To me these are some of the better covers of Stones songs out there. The Stones, like the Beatles and every other mega-band, have been covered to death by everyone under the sun: Some with very nice voices, some who ought never open their mouths in the presence of others; some who play it safe with a note-for-note copy of the original and some who distort it so much (Cat Power, Stina Nordenstam) that it really is a brand new song (sometimes very good on its own, sometimes...not so much).

I like these two covers because A) I like both the original songs very much anyway, B) I loved both Terence Trent D'Arby and The Sundays long before they ever played these songs, and C) The covers are in my opinion excellently done, neither too exact nor too great a departure. One is intense and stripped down instrumentally, and one is more melodic, but both (I feel) are moving in their own way, the singers both putting their hearts into it as much as they do their own material, and thus they've made a nice tribute to the original songs and songwriters.

I generally don't care for covers, but like everything in life, there are always exceptions. Do you have some favorite covers? Not just of the Stones, but cover versions of any songs that you especially like? Feel free to name them in the comments section!

5 comments:

Metamatician said...

Sorry, there doesn't seem to be HD version of Sundays videos on YouTube. Probably some dumb record company prohibition. I would have liked to make the videos equal size and video quality, but just couldn't find a high enough quality Sundays video that allowed embedding. Bah. If I ever come across one, I'll swap it in here.

Still good songs, though :)

Metamatician said...

I'll throw out two more covers that I really like, to get the conversation started:

Nico's version of Gordon Lightfoot's "I'm Not Sayin'" and Morrissey's version of Patti Smith's "Redondo Beach".

There are dozens or even hundreds more I could list of course, but I want other people to name some of their favorites...

Hans said...

This could be the start of a Pandora's box of cover songs, but it's always fun to have music to comment on. I couldn't get past the first 5 seconds of the first one, and I very much liked The Sundays and the cow that made an appearance? Where's the horse?

Here's a odd side note: last night Mama and I were looking at Rolling Stones lyrics for half an hour.

Metamatician said...

I guess you just don't like Soul, Hans. I'm glad you like The Sundays though. Harriet is from Reading, Berkshire (near London) and met David the guitarist at Bristol University. After finishing there they added the bassist and drummer and made three hit albums in the 90s, with singles like "Here's Where The Story Ends," and "Summertime". After 1997 Harriet and Dave decided to concentrate on raising their two children. Although they've never official "retired," there' been no new songs for 13 years now. I was lucky enough to see them and then meet them and talk to them for quite awhile after the show, and they were both very friendly!

I always had a big crush on her too from my senior year in high school and all through the 90s. :)

How odd that you guys were looking at Rolling Stones lyrics! Any particular reason?

---
Let's see, two more covers... The Cranberries did a good version of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way," and Fine Young Cannibals made a good uptempo version of Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds"...

Metamatician said...

BTW that cow appeared in the video for free, according to Dennis. He just wanted his .15 seconds of fame.

Dunno where the horses were.

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