Cover Girl

Yesterday Mental_Floss had a feature on little-known songs that are arguably better than their more-famous cover versions—for instance, Neil Diamond's original version of "I'm a Believer," made popular by the Monkees.

I tend to prefer the first version of a song I hear, regardless of whether it's the original or a cover. (Which is why it's all the more puzzling that I can never seem to stop myself from purchasing tribute CDs that contain nothing but covers of a favorite artist's songs.) So that might explain why I prefer the Monkees' cover of "I'm a Believer."

(Although something tells me that I still would have preferred the English Beat's cover of "Can't Get Used to Losing You" even if I'd previously been familiar with the original 1963 version by, um, Andy Williams—a sarcastic thanks to Mark for sharing that song with me.)

There are millions of exceptions, of course. There are certain songs that I like so much that I "collect" different versions of them, like "The Long Black Veil" (which I have by everyone from the Band to Dave Matthews & Emmylou Harris to the Grateful Dead) and "Oh Susanna" (James Taylor, Michelle Shocked & Pete Anderson, the Be Good Tanyas), "Angel from Montgomery" (John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Ben Harper & Tom Freund, Dave Matthews), and so on. Other songs did nothing for me the first time I heard them, but a cover version caught my attention—for instance, Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" or Richard Thompson's cover of the Britney Spears song "Oops! ... I Did It Again."

What about you—covers or originals?

Comments

[scott]

How about Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus? Marilyn Manson did a brilliant cover of it. Heck, I even like Johnny Cash's cover of it.

Speaking of Manson, I thought his cover of Sweet Dreams was also terrific.

The Lovemongers (members of Heart, apparently) did a really wonderful cover of Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore.

Sheryl Crow did fabulous covers of Sweet Child O' Mine and Ode to Billy Joe.

[Erin]

Travis does an amusing cover of "Oops ... I Did It Again" too.

[Sharon]

I agree with Scott. Johnny Cash's Personal Jesus is good. I prefer covers, but Jersey Girl is a toss up. Tom Waits and Springsteen do a great job.

[Janeen]

I find that I can't stand Grateful Dead songs unless somebody else sings them. Indigo Girls doing "Uncle John's Band," is one example.

[Jack]

Depends on the song. I did a whole post on this a while back. I'll leave the link, but if you prefer not having it feel free to delete it, don't mean to overstep my bounds.

Cover Songs (http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/2008/03/cover-songs-part-1.html)

[Wendy]

The Chieftains also do a version of "Long Black Veil." You probably know that, but just in case . . . I have several versions of "This Guy's In Love With You," as I love to collect covers, as well.

[Jennifer]

Even though Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" is near perfection, I adore the covers by Social Distortion and Dick Dale. Stan Ridgeway's version is a little odd, but sometimes I'm in the mood for that, too.

Limp Bizkit's cover of George Michael's "Faith" rocks.

I never gave a thought to Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done for Me Lately," until I heard Sharon Jones do it.

And, Stevie Wonder's cover of The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out," has an undeniably awesome groove.

Just to name a few...there are so many more.