It pains me to admit this, but I prefer Manfred Mann's version of "Blinded by the Light" over Bruce Springsteen's.
1 is obscene and should have been preceded by a trigger warning. THIS IS NOT A SAFE SPACE.
Assumes facts not in evidence! What Willie Nelson song is as good as "Suburbia" or "Left To My Own Devices"?
Not possessing heebie-geebie's infallibility I can only guess at this.
But I like the Red House Painter's version of "Silly Love Songs" better than the original Wings version.
Certainly, some would argue that Red House Painters are a better band than Wings, but I don't think that many people would say that Mark Kozelek is a better songwriter than Paul McCartney.
Maybe Emerson would.
Hang on, objectively speaking the Pet Shop Boys are way, way, better than Willie Nelson.
3: If you're going to be doubting heebie's infallbility, you probably need to just leave.
And to answer your question --- "Crazy".
Wheatus' version of Pet Shop Boys' "A Little Respect".
I don't think that many people would say that Mark Kozelek is a better songwriter than Paul McCartney.
During the time that Mark Kozolek has been writing songs, he's been the better songwriter by a very wide margin.
Paul McCartney writes better songs, then all of you do.
During the time that Mark Kozolek has been writing songs, he's been the better songwriter by a very wide margin.
Yes.
Speaking of which, I stumbled into the local Reddit branch's meet-up (I was meeting a friend; turns out the friend was meeting them...) At one point they weren't sure how to greet each other, and honestly, you won't believe how hard it was to avoid shouting `who wants to sex Motumbo?'.
UB40's cover of Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine.
objectively speaking the Pet Shop Boys are way, way, better than Willie Nelson
Objectively speaking, they are certainly not.
I like the Pet Shob Boys' version just fine, but prefer Willie's by a mile.
Oh, and an example of the type described in the OP: the 1000 Homo DJs version of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut" is far superior to the original.
I usually like Devo's version of "Satisfaction" better than the Rolling Stones version.
And for now, I like Antony and the Johnson's version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" better than Bob Dylan's version.
Pretty much every Bob Dylan cover song is better than the Dylan version.
Pretty much every Bob Dylan cover song is better than the Dylan version.
Blasphemy!
Shonen Knife's "On Top of the World" is certainly a lot more enjoyable than The Carpenters'.
In fairness, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was always already an Antony and the Johnsons song.
Todd is completely wrong. Exhibit A: Dylan's version of "All Along the Watchtower" is vastly better than Hendrix's. This should be evident, right?
21.1: Please explain.
21.2: Does someone need to explain to you the logical flaw in your attempt at sarcasm?
23: This is the point where peep's brain would explode, if he had one.
Also what Todd said, only about Daniel Johnston.
Peep, have you heard Bjork and PJ Harvey's "Satisfaction"? It's gimmicky but compelling. It's from some awards show, I think. They make interesting noises. And Cat Power did a kind of great stunt cover where she left out, you know, the "I can't get no/Satisfaction" part.
I am mildly obsessed with covers. I used to have long email exchanges with a friend about covers.
Articolo 31's Italian rap version of "Like a Rolling Stone" is not as good as the original, but I guess it's possible that Articolo 31 are a better musical artist than Bob Dylan, since I'm not familiar with the rest of their work.
From the same movie soundtrack, we have the eminently coverable songwriter meeting the great musician with very few songwriting ideas, in Jerry Garcia's excellent version of "Señor [Tales of Yankee Power]".
I've confused about the criteria here. Most people seem to be naming songs that (1) were originally by the better artist, (2) of which a better cover was later made by the inferior artist. Yet the post only requires that a worse artist makes the better version of a song. There are tons of examples of that. E.g., Elvis Presley's cover of "I've never been to Spain" isn't as good as Three Dog Night's, but Elvis is certainly the better artist. But his cover came after theirs, and it was a Hoyt Axton song in the first place.
(: Paul McCartney writes better songs, then all of you do, then all of the world does. It's nature's way of making better songs.
28: you're right.
Bob Dylan's version of "Must Be Santa" is way worse than the version by my sixth-grade school chorus.
30: Thanks for the correction. Backward emoticons blow my mind.
Peep, have you heard Bjork and PJ Harvey's "Satisfaction"?
No.
I am mildly obsessed with covers. I used to have long email exchanges with a friend about covers.
This surprises me. I would have guessed with the breadth of your musical tastes you would dispute the whole concept.
Biz Markee's cover of "Benny and the Jets" is better than Elton John's original. Although, objectively, Biz Markee may in fact be the better artist.
33.1: Here's your big opportunity.
re: 26
It's from the Brit Awards, some time in the early to mid 90s.
My favourite Bjork cover is probably her version of the Beatles 'Fool on a Hill'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roqEOWhBcnw
35: Thanks! I risked my job and put on headphones and listened to it for a minute.
PJ Harvey's version of Wang-Dang-Doodle is also great, although I'm not sure which you'd have to go on the Willie Dixon versus Harvey as artist question.
PJ Harvey - Wang Dang Doodle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjcVpql5nIo
I suppose the Beatles and Bob Dylan have a special place in this discussion because they are largely responsible for the expectation that the performers will have written their own songs, which creates the possibility of a "cover" version.
This could be completely wrong for a few different reasons.
Hmmm. This thread has caused me to look upon many of you with disfavor. Be warned. Spike, it pains me to say this, but in the future Halfordocracy your first comment has ensured a trip to the reeducation camps, and all those agreeing with 18 shall suffer the same fate. What can I say, sometimes objective truth just needs to be defended.
My view on the Pet Shop Boys is that they come from the 1980s and therefore, like literally all music fashionable in the 1980s except for some metal and maybe three other bands, totally suck. This is just reality.
re: 40
In pop music, maybe. In country and blues music a lot of the greats were famous as both writers and performers [pre-Beatles, I mean].
41.last: I'm going to play the Go Go just to spite you.
42: Yes. That is one of the ways I was wrong.
My view on the Pet Shop Boys is that they come from the 1980s and therefore, like literally all music fashionable in the 1980s except for some metal and maybe three other bands, totally suck. This is just reality.
Prince?
18: Pretty much every Bob Dylan cover song is better than the Dylan version.
I'd modify to: Pretty much every Bob Dylan song has a cover(s) that is better than the Dylan version.
And why wouldn't that be the case for someone whose songs are "covered" so extensively? The singer part of singer/songwriter is contingent and but one entrant in the competition. That said, there are some songs which are going to be tough to wrest away from the songwriter's interpretation. A Dylan example would be something like "Desolation Row", in part because most anyone who thinks they have something to add to it is overwhelmingly likely to be an overly self-regarding wanker.
Nouvelle Vague's Makeing Plans for Nigel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH3x1PSYcm8
Prince and Big Black released music in the 1980s, didn't they?
an overly self-regarding wanker
"Musician" is sufficiently descriptive.
Favorite Dylan song. As for covers, a good rule is that The Ukulele Orchestra cover of x is better than the original.
(Bonus: Best Bob Dylan Song.)
27.1: Greil Marcus flashbacks! Aaah!
45: Yes. And Talking Heads.
I blame nosflow for the copy/paste failure there.
46: That is an interesting thought.
I think there's a theory that there is something special about a singer performing their own song-- that somehow it will be more sincere, emotional etc.
Romantic nonsense, of course, but it's hard to get away from that in something as inherently illogical as music.
Another thesis: Prince is both an unusually awesome coverer, and is covered unusually well.
Hang on, objectively speaking the Pet Shop Boys are way, way, better than Willie Nelson.
Completely wrong
Pretty much every Bob Dylan cover song is better than the Dylan version.
I see that Ogged is truly dead to us now.
I am mildly obsessed with covers. I used to have long email exchanges with a friend about covers.
You should stop by sometime. I don't think I've posted any particularly interesting covers lately but, for example, I'd be interested in your opinion of this cover of "Woodstock" which I like, but can't quite like more than the original.
||
The twitter joke trial guy lost his appeal. This is a fucking travesty.
>
PJ Harvey - Wang Dang Doodle:
I hadn't heard that before. That's fantastic.
33: Thanks, but what's to dispute? In classical music*, almost everything is a cover! Where I do find the category difficult is in the realm of standards, which on some gut level, maybe due to the influence of jazz, feel like they were written to be covered. So like when I speak of Dolly Parton's "I Get a Kick Out of You," is it a cover? What's the urtext?
*insert any AlexRossian caveats about the term deemed necessary
I <3 Bob Dylan's cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer". Or at least think it's kind of hilarious.
57: I think you answered your own question.
re: 57
Yeah, although one annoyance I sometimes have with standards is that a lot of artists aren't doing the standard, but are doing a cover of someone else's version of that standard. See rants passim about the number of male singers who just copy Sinatra's phrasing/intonation [and even tempos and orchestration]; ditto female singers with Ella Fitzgerald or Billy Holliday.
It applies even in jazz, I think, where certain performers' versions of tunes exert a gravitational pull around which most other versions revolve.
53 - Have you heard the Dump (the side project of James from Yo La Tengo) album that's all Prince covers? I love it to death.
To the OP, Metallica's Turn the Page and Whiskey in the Jar.
Wait, Bob Seger is objectively better than Metallica? Aaagh. Gswift, I had been counting on you to run the security apparatus of the dictatorship, but it looks like you, Spike, and Keir will all be sharing a cell in the reeducation camp.
40: Upon reflection I realize that who wrote the song is irrelevant. Thus, Smashmouth covered the Monkee's "I'm a Believer", and it makes no difference that Neil Diamond wrote it. In fact if Neil Diamond released a version of it, it would be a cover too.
In classical music*, almost everything is a cover!
How so?
62 is literally the best thing I have ever seen.
The twitter joke trial guy lost his appeal. This is a fucking travesty.
What the fuck? How is that even possible?
The twitter joke trial guy lost his appeal. This is a fucking travesty.
"But Judge Jacqueline Davies instead handed down a devastating finding at Doncaster which dismissed Chambers' appeal on every count. After reading out his Tweet - "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" - she found it contained menace and that Chambers must have known that it might be taken seriously."
Menace! I think it's going to be harder to claim now that it's the United States that's turned into a nation of bedwetters while Britain has Stayed Calm and Carried On.
re: 65
re: the Monkees. You could definitely make a case for this as the better version of 'Stepping Stone':
[stone cold bona fide 1966 freakbeat classic]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD8TH0LBjm0
The goal is to find the biggest discrepancy between the quality of the artists, with the worse artist pwning the better. So if the better version is by someone who's pretty reputable in their own right, then it's not much of an achievement. The better version should come from someone as terrible as possible.
Can he appeal the appeal? Is there a yet higher court? Can Judge Jacqueline Davies be laughed out of office?
Looking at covers that I've posted, the one's that seem like they could belong on a the list are:
Grace Jones covering "Love Is The Drug"
Local Musicians covering "We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning"
I really like Bobby Womak's version of "Nobody Wants You When You're Down And Out" but I don't think I can argue that it's clearly better than Bessie Smith's version.
And, in keeping with this thread, Willie Nelson's duet with Paul Simon on "Homeward Bound"
62, 67: Arion and the dolphin! I wonder if Dick sang "the high, shrill song."
they were sent at a time when the security threat to this country was substantial
You know, I'm getting sick of this bullshit. If we've really been at "significant risk of terror attack" every day for the last nine years, we would have had more of them by now. Maybe heebie should teach probability to the governments of the US and the UK.
re: 68/69
I can't even write about this as I'm so angry all that's going to come out is a torrent of abuse.
The goal is to find the biggest discrepancy between the quality of the artists
I think the Grace Jones cover does well by that criterion.
re: 75
This isn't really a 'government' thing. Although they've certainly created the climate in which petty-bureaucratic fuckwits like this can thrive.
There were 10,000 bomb attacks during the 'Troubles', for fuck's fucking sake.
the biggest discrepancy between the quality of the artists
William Shatner's "Common People" vs. Pulp's? Then again, Shatner had some serious help that I suppose reduces the nominal quality discrepancy.
78: Apparently, the British government has decided that trying to stop a pissed-off Irishman from trying to kill is impossible while others may be dissuadable.
Ok, so we now know that dolphins like:
(a) lyre playing poets
(b) Elian Gonzalez
(c) Dick Van Dyke
There were 10,000 bomb attacks during the 'Troubles', for fuck's fucking sake.
And in spite of all that, civil liberties violations and government abuse were comparably mild
Whenever I see Brits arguing that the case of Irish terrorism shows how they reacted to a serious public security threat without losing their fucking minds and bending down before the almighty god of security at all cost, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The only thing better is the French explaining to me how unlike the Americans in Vietnam, Central America, et. al. they didn't engage in mass war crimes or connive in keeping or installing horrible and horribly corrupt governments in power.
William Shatner's "Common People" vs. Pulp's?
Is not better than the original. I'm sorry, it isn't.
73.2 is blasphemy. Emmylou singing "But out of your arms/ I'm out of my mind" is the sweetest sound of purest ache on record.
I should have figured this would be one of these threads.
And in spite of all that, civil liberties violations and government abuse were comparably mild
On the whole, the reaction was a damn sight more proportional than the post-2001 reaction has been. And I know plenty about the civil rights abuses that took place in Northern Ireland, thanks very much.
I should have figured this would be one of these threads.
There's an outside chance that I was snickering as I posted this.
Whenever I see Brits arguing that the case of Irish terrorism shows how they reacted to a serious public security threat without losing their fucking minds and bending down before the almighty god of security at all cost, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Comparatively, it's true. Unless there was an invasion of the Republic of Ireland (and Portugal) in the 1970s that I missed.
73.2 is blasphemy.
Read the linked post, I am quite fond of the original I just think the cover is both interesting and successful.
84: Shatner's cover has the virtues of (i) Shatner and (ii) being less whiny.
In off-topic numbered matters, I visited Nerdsville, the capitol of Nerdsylvania, the local comic book store yesterday, where I was struck by a few stray musings fired in the course of a nearby thought crime: (i) almost a century of increasingly idealized, hypertrophied heroic physiques have not inspired one's fellow comic nerds to skip a goddamned meal; and (ii) wasn't Mary Jane Watson on the same field trip when Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive Stan Lee Uncle Ben spider? Has no one written a parallel universe tale of the secret identity of a pretty, popular high school cheerleader, or have riches beyond the dreams of avarice lost their appeal?
Wait, Bob Seger is objectively better than Metallica? Aaagh.
Yeah, that's a bit much. The important thing is that Metallica is the greatest cover band ever and in the coming crackdown I expect that they be banned from pursuing anything but covers.
90(ii): If it hasn't been done, I think you should.
Janice Joplin's version of "Piece of my Heart" was better than Erma Franklin's although Franklin was clearly the better singer. (if I can't work somebody up with one half of that statement or the other, I'll give up trolling, although I believe it to be true.)
66: Always an interpretation of an original. Pop songs, to me, feel like they have an urtext: the original version on an album. With the exception of 20th century stuff from the era of recording, let's say Bartok plays Bartok there's always a layer of mediation that makes what you're hearing closer to a cover.
I'm just typing this without a lot of forethought. I'm glossing over some distinctions like composer/performer. If it's messy, I know you'll be quick to pick it apart, and that's fine by me.
89: I did read the linked post, and even listened to the cover. I'm just right just disagree, is all.
almost a century of increasingly idealized, hypertrophied heroic physiques have not inspired one's fellow comic nerds to skip a goddamned meal
I suspect Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons is a character people will identify with for at least another 50 years.
96: well, be fair. A century of idolising the slim and athletic hasn't exactly stopped the rest of the population from becoming obese either.
Always an interpretation of an original.
A score isn't a recording? "Cover" is a concept that doesn't make very much sense when applied to different performers working from the same score.
With the exception of 20th century stuff from the era of recording, let's say Bartok plays Bartok there's always a layer of mediation that makes what you're hearing closer to a cover.
Rather naïve to think that a composer's own rendition of his works is less mediated than another person's—Taruskin is good on the many differences between Stravinsky's various "authoritative" recordings.
I did read the linked post, and even listened to the cover. I'm just right just disagree, is all.
I'm just pointing out that, in the linked post, I don't claim that the cover is better than the original. That is a stretch, I admit, that I made just to link to it in this thread.
Do you disagree that the cover is successful?
I guess you could argue that Tiffany's version of "I think we're alone now" is better than Tommy James's. And I know that contradicts what I said upthread, but fuck it, I contain multitudes.
On the whole, the reaction was a damn sight more proportional than the post-2001 reaction has been
Domestically? You've got to be kidding me. Thousands of British citizens rounded up to be interned and tortured without any court orders, government backed death squads roaming the streets and murdering British citizens. Bad as its been, the British (and American) degree of crackdown on its own domestic population has been nothing compared to what the Brits did. You can argue proportionality, in that the threat level was significantly higher, but that doesn't change the sheer scale of abuse, mostly targetting Northern Irish Catholic men, a fairly small demographic group.
I thought you were going to go with something superficially defensible, like the existence of "variations on a theme of X" pieces since way back.
Not having read the comments, I have similar thoughts to the OP about songs with similar subject matter which have better politics despite being sung by the less political band. I.e., viz. and to wit:
"Holiday In the Sun" by the Sex Pistols is better than "Safe European Home" by the Clash.
Also, the cover of "Midnight Confession" by Phyllis Dillon is so superior to the Grass Roots' version it is not even funny.
Metallica is the greatest cover band ever
Bob Seger is objectively better than Metallica? Aaagh.
Yes, yes he is. Also, Seger's version of Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" on Back in '72 rocks a lot harder than Allman's original.
Also also, #3 gets it exactly right.
re: 101
I don't think you really know whereof you speak. Really.
"Cover" is a concept that doesn't make very much sense when applied to different performers working from the same score.
I'm not sure I see why not. Especially if you're, I guess, saying a score and a recording and so presumably a performance are equivalent.
Rather naïve to think that a composer's own rendition of his works is less mediated than another person's--Taruskin is good on the many differences between Stravinsky's various "authoritative" recordings.
Naive, alright. I guess I could have counted on the fact that you would feel the need not only to disagree, but to belittle me. So it goes. Anyway fine, I've never been big on the idea of the composer's intent as a stable and inviolate thing, so perhaps I should just take out the "almost" in "almost everything is a cover."
Especially if you're, I guess, saying a score and a recording and so presumably a performance are equivalent.
No, that's exactly what I meant not to be saying; a score isn't a recording (or a performance) and it seems odd to apply "cover" to the rendition of a score.
Also, I notice that suddenly we're talking "domestically", which conveniently excludes discussion of all the bits of the post-2001 response that involved 155mm white phosphorus shells, M1A2 Abrams tanks, stealth bombers, 2000lb satellite-guided bombs, ten-year terms of imprisonment and torture without trial, and so on.
Your goalposts: let me help you shift them.
99: It's pretty good, and while I agree that the female voice in the original doesn't come out as strongly as it should, I think it's too prominent in the cover. Mostly, I think Emmylou Harris singing that particular line is among the greatest things ever.
94: Why can't I keep myself from reading YouTube comments? YouTube is like a special club for blowhards who take pride in being wrong. ("Bartok was generally not considered an especially great pianist"? Wrong.)
re: 101
There weren't thousands of people interned without trial; nor were there 'death squads'* in anything like the sense that term implies. But never let the facts get in the way, eh?
* although what actually happened -- 'shoot to kill', collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, and so on -- was certainly bad enough.
92: 90(ii) was a little fatuous. The nerd canon is full of sexy, sultry superchicks, but none of them, to my knowledge, has achieved mindspace in the neckbearded herd or the mainstream comparable to that of Our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-dude.
IRA vs. Al-Qaeda:
For my money, the worm really turned in the 80s and 90s with the investigation and prosecution of ALF and related groups in Britain. Yes, there were massive civil rights abuses in Ireland (for, like, hundreds of years even), but the panic around animal liberation activism was when things got really disproportionate. I mean, there really is an IRA, and UDA, and all the other paramilitaries, and, at least until very recently, they all had a fuck of a lot of guns (not by US standards, but still) and explosives and mortars. They mortared 10 Downing St., for chrissakes (which was TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME and made my day when I heard about it, even though I deplore violence and terrorism of every kind). The animal liberation people were just sophisticated vandals, and yet the UK (and now US) governments have been treating even their propagandists as dangerous enemies of the state.
Well FWIF isn't it a very rare thing for a classical musician to play anything strictly from the score? Many aural versions inform most conductors/performers. Especially given the narrowness of symphonic programming lean times have inspired, not a whole lot of sight reading goes on. Barenboim's Wagner strikes some as a cover of Furtwangler's, e.g.
111. I think it's fair to say that, while teraz is pulling numbers out of his arse at a great rate, various home secs, especially Merlyn Rees of foul memory, made it perfectly clear that they didn't give a shit about human rights in N.Ireland and successive governments approved their attitudes by their continuing in office.
Speaking of Bartok, Ruth Palmer's recent solo Bartok/Bach violin disk is pretty great.
http://www.hiddenacoustics.com/movs/Bartok-OCTAGON.mov
re: 115
Oh, certainly. I'd never quibble with the fact that very real human rights abuses took place, but it doesn't help the discussion if people just make shit up. Then again, I was writing to Tory home secretaries about human rights abuses at the time [qua precocious politically involved teenager, etc].
They mortared 10 Downing St., for chrissakes (which was TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME and made my day when I heard about it, even though I deplore violence and terrorism of every kind).
I'm not sure I can reconcile these propositions. Ordnance in a dense urban center is ordnance in a dense urban center, even if one is aiming at Mean Old Lady Thatcher and lucky not to hit a grammar-school field trip bus.
Merlyn Rees
But was his cover version better than the Cromwell original?
112: Friendly hot spider-dudette? Could be bigger than Wonder Woman!
A little under two thousand interned in Northern Ireland the first half of the seventies, so yes, not quite thousands. Some Loyalists did get interned in the latter stages of the program, but in far, far fewer numbers than Nationalists, and unlike the Catholics targeted for internment who ranged from people who the state was absolutely certain were engaged in violence to ones who they thought might be helping all the way to leaders of non-violent Nationalist groups, the small number of Protestants interned were all in the first group. In the early years of the conflict, the Loyalist paramilitaries operated with very extensive state support. Later on things were more complicated in that they were both cracked down on and supported by different elements within the state security apparatus. Torture was official policy.
NB I think Cuba would be a better analogy for Iraq than Portugal. Catholic and 'the enemy' in an unrelated conflict.
Is Anal Cunt's "Stayin' Alive" better than the Bee Gees' original? Discuss.
Friendly hot spider-dudette?
It seemed like a good idea, until she bit off Spiderman's head post-coitally.
118: Well, remember my reaction to the September 11th attacks (by which I mean those of 2001, not the Centralia masacre of 1919 or the murder of Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer in 1887) was: "Technically sweet, but now the Palestinians are really fucked."
124: Shit, got my months confused. Whatever. My point is: I like it when people rise up in particularly audacious ways, even if the PIRA was not as ideologically pure as it could have been, and even if violence of any kind is an abomination. (Also getting 9/11 conflated with the Chilean coup. Oh well, it's been a busy month.)
I'd like to think things work out well for the alternate Peter Parker, but he probably becomes a camera-equipped, borderline stalker.
Not having read the rest of the thread, but:
Wheatus' version of Pet Shop Boys' "A Little Respect".
Pet Shop Boys? Wrong gay synthpop duo, apo.
12 gets it exactly right.
90.2: Has no one written a parallel universe tale of the secret identity of a pretty, popular high school cheerleader, or have riches beyond the dreams of avarice lost their appeal?
Not comics, but the TV series Heroes.
The (performance in) the video in 116 is great.
124. You forget the 1973 attack on the Moneda Palace by Henry Kissinger Augusto Pinochet. To which my reaction at the time was, if I run into an short haired American today, they're going to sing me ¡Venceremos! or I'm going to kick their teeth in.
Buffy was a former super-popular high-school cheerleader turned kick ass nerd superhero with stereotypical cheerleader looks.
Barenboim's Wagner strikes some as a cover of Furtwangler's, e.g.
Well, that I think makes sense, and is similar to nattarGcM's remark about people doing standards in the mode of Fitzgerald or Sinatra. But we don't say that (e.g.) Elvis Presley covered Lieber and Stoller. (Or that a band performing live is covering itself-in-the-studio.) I recruit to my cause as well the following endoxa, that it is sensible, on being told that something is a cover, to ask who did or how can be heard the original; if all performances of composed music are covers, the answer to such questions must be (a) no one and (b) it's impossible. (The answer to the first can't be "the composer" because the composer only wrote the score and the questioner isn't asking who wrote the piece but who did it; cf. Lieber and Stoller example.) To me this suffices to show that "cover" isn't happily applied here. (I think the issue of interpretation is a red herring.)
Also, I apologize for the snitty tone in my earlier comments.
127: Wow. Did I type that? I guess I got distracted by the earlier PSB references.
Also, I apologize for the snitty tone in my earlier comments.
How many of them?
NB I think Cuba would be a better analogy for Iraq than Portugal. Catholic and 'the enemy' in an unrelated conflict
When on earth did a British government ever regard Cuba as the enemy? They weren't even part of the Warsaw Pact.
They mortared 10 Downing St., for chrissakes (which was TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME
They missed. Two of the bombs didn't go off at all and the other one made a hole in the lawn. It was one of their less successful attacks (and the PM at the time was Major, not Thatcher).
But I appreciate that Natilo feels he has to say things like this from time to time to reinforce his anti-establishment credibility, and the best thing to do is just to nod and smile.
136: But I appreciate that Natilo feels he has to say things like this from time to time to reinforce his anti-establishment credibility, and the best thing to do is just to nod and smile.
Pre-zackly!
I think the 'missing' bit is sort of key to thinking it was TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME, if you're the kind of person who disapproves of violence generally. Prospectively, mortaring a building with people in it in a built-up area is a terrible thing to do. Retrospectively, after no one's actually gotten hurt, it's kind of cool that Thatcher had to be jumpy about it from then on. (This is an irresponsible and silly reaction, no one should be firing mortars at anyone, even if it turns out that there were no injuries as it turned out, but it's not actually bloodthirsty and I know how Natilio feels.)
The animal liberation people were just sophisticated vandals
I have no idea whether the reaction is proportional to the threat, but the reaction remains serious, and seriously expensive, in some places.
136, 138 - yeah, blowing up that Brighton hotel was much cooler! People actually got hurt!
Also, it has to be said that the attack occurred when I was in high school, and heavily involved in anarchist/anti-war activism for the first time.
In any case, my point with that, aside from the editorial comment, was that, you can't really expect the state to be unconcerned when you are attacking one of the seats of government with mortars. Even if you are not particularly successful.
133: I think you're right and 133.2 accepted.
I guess if I can make some sense of what I was originally saying, without further defending what was not well thought out, it's that subjectively I enjoy hearing Callas' Sonnambula with Sutherland's in mind (or Polaski's Elektra with some amalgam of other performances constituting an original in my head) in the same way I enjoy hearing Townes van Zandt's "Dead Flowers" in relation to The Rolling Stones, which is straightforwardly a cover--the sense of hearing something something familiar with a different musical sensibility defamiliarizing it.
Just to be absolutely clear: While I sympathize with the legitimate desire for a united and free Ireland on the part of many people, I think the post-Partition hardline factions have often been counterproductive at best and actively harmful on balance. But, similarly to the way that a military aviation enthusiast might celebrate the career of the Red Baron, I'm impressed by many aspects of the various Republican paramilitaries' campaigns, not least the incredible amount of prisoner solidarity they were able to generate and use as a potent organizing force. Gerry Adams was a brilliant national liberation tactician in his youth. Now he's just another asshole in the government.
Retrospectively, after no one's actually gotten hurt, it's kind of cool that Thatcher had to be jumpy about it from then on.
Major, not Thatcher. And no, it's not kind of cool.
And it's not true that no one was hurt. Four people who happened to be in the wrong place were hospitalised by the bomb that missed. No Cabinet members were hurt.
I'm not sure how much more or less AWESOME that makes it, to be honest.
Also, it has to be said that the attack occurred when I was in high school, and safely located several thousand miles away from the nearest mortar or IED.
144: I apologize for having forgotten the facts of the event; please accept my thought process as applicable to a hypothetical incident in which no one was in fact injured.
But, similarly to the way that a military aviation enthusiast might celebrate the career of the Red Baron, I'm impressed by many aspects of the various Republican paramilitaries' campaigns, not least the incredible amount of prisoner solidarity they were able to generate and use as a potent organizing force.
But I'm sure you will agree that they weren't nearly as impressive as the Ku Klux Klan, aspects of whose campaign you'll obviously be equally ready to admire in a purely objective way.
144: safely located several thousand miles away from the nearest mortar or IED
Well, come on now. Statistically, I was probably at vastly greater risk of being hit by a car on my way to school on Feb. 7, 1991 than anyone in England was from being killed by an IRA bomb that day.
146: Eh, as far as what we can learn from the KKK, I'd say: It helps to have a gigantic wing of passive supporters who will do everything but commit violence on behalf of your cause. The KKK was certainly at its most dangerous when it was cellular, clandestine and ad hoc. When it got bureaucratized (the 4th generation, I think?) in the teens and twenties, it was basically just a pressure group with fairly limited effectiveness, given how much time and energy and money people put into it. Remember too, that, during the nadir of American race relations, a huge part of the violence was on the part of completely unorganized, not heavily-ideologized groups of white people. There were lynchings as far north as Duluth, and race riots in big cities where there was virtually no organized white supremacist activism.
148: Well, I'm missing your point then. I imagined you were saying "If you'd lived in the UK at the time, nearby where this conflict was taking place, you would have a significantly different perspective, because your personal safety, or that of your friends and family, would have been an issue." Thus my response. And I would point out that there were plenty of people of my political persuasion in the UK who felt about the same as me.
149: so, the lynchings: TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME or not?
The reason I am bringing this up is to help explain why it's slightly annoying to have people thousands of miles away getting all fanboyish about your local organised crime/murder group.
The Ku Klux Klan were on the side of the state enforcing the oppression of minorities, that's one difference. If there were secret societies of black men riding horses around 1920s Alabama in the dead of night, meting out vigilante violence against landlords and sheriffs and then going back to their daily lives, it would be hard not to feel some romantic sympathy, occasionally, like we do with the Molly Maguires.
151: Well, but what's technically sweet about a lynching? Basically you're just talking about a huge group of people, with the tacit support of the state, ganging up on one or a few other people and murdering them. That's not a particularly well-thought-out tactic. As I said above, it basically depends on the fact that you've got a huge group of people who believe that "a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect", and that, in fact, that's the official policy of the government.
As I've made clear, while I am broadly in sympathy with some of their founding principles, I'm not a supporter of the PIRA, just as I'm not a Hamas or FARC supporter, although I also believe those groups to be the lesser of two evils in their respective conflicts.
I'm not sure, other than on a purely emotional level, why you find an objective critique of revolutionary/national liberation movements so offensive. How else are we supposed to learn? The awesomeness of the 10 Downing St. attacks for me stems not from the specific politics around them, although I certainly wouldn't have been sad if John Major had died before being able to inflict more harm on the people of Iraq, but based, as I wrote above, on their audacity and panache. If I had been in command of the PIRA/Sinn Fein at that point, obviously my politics would have dictated action in a different direction.
I think that for many Americans Ireland has so much weight as a mythical land of origin/oppression/Leprechauns/whatever instead of being a real 20th century nation, which makes romanticization of the violence much easier. It's all part of some quaint old world tradition that's fun to think about but isn't, you know, really real.
Wait, Natilo is defending bombings?
Seeing as the analogy ban has been lifted on this topic, why not have fun.
I see the PIRA as something that might have happened if rather than using the power of the federal government to end segregation, the feds had confined themselves to pious calls on the South to do the right thing and then sent in the troops to restore order when elements of the Civil Right movement started to use violence, with the troops at times taking a shoot 'em all, god will sort em out approach against Civil Rights activists. Would a subsequent large scale radical black nationalist movement that included random bombings in public spaces in northern cities, mass murders of random whites in the South, and all the pathologies of illegal armed movements get a lot of sympathy among American whites? Probably most would despise it, but I think that due to the background history, there would be more white sympathizers than non-Irish UK ones of the IRA.
I'm going to disengage from this, as I think we are talking at cross purposes. I really do think attacks on non-government/non-corporate targets by insurrectionary groups are almost always a bad idea, and I think the death toll of the Troubles was a tragic waste. But I'm always going to empathize with people who feel that they've been pushed past the bounds of reasonable discourse by the actions of those in power. Even if I'm relatively safe from everything except cancer, cars and the occasional stray drug war bullet where I live, the daily spectacle of oppression and the rising tide of fascism here and abroad is something that impinges on my consciousness to a pretty high degree. Yes, the situation for me, right now, is better than it has been for many people of my beliefs in the past, but even so I have friends who are in jail, on probation, under investigation or who have had their lives ruined in other ways by state repression. If they didn't have those little glimmers of hope from "thousands of miles away" how would I ask them to go on?
If I had been in command of the PIRA/Sinn Fein at that point, obviously my politics would have dictated action in a different direction.
Yes, but you wouldn't have been (though you might have been a grunt in the IRSP at that date.) So it's an invalid counterfactual. And I don't see what good would have been served by killing Major, berk tho he was/is. You'd simply identify opposition to the Iraq sanctions with terrorism while another advocate of them formed a government. This is not a revolutionary strategy.
but based, as I wrote above, on their audacity and panache.
Think of it as a sort of lefty NASCAR.
I think that for many Americans Ireland has so much weight as a mythical land of origin/oppression/Leprechauns/whatever instead of being a real 20th century nation, which makes romanticization of the violence much easier. It's all part of some quaint old world tradition that's fun to think about but isn't, you know, really real.
Not at all a necessary precondition. Tons of Poles romanticize the anti-communist resistance of the mid to late forties. They were worse than the IRA, however, the state they were fighting was much worse than the IRA's opponents. Add a tradition of worshiping anti-state violence in the name of the nation, and you too could see the nobility of viciously racist fascist thugs.
[Ironically, the founders of the Polish fascist tradition hated the Romantic Nationalist tradition of hero-worshiping those who engaged in futile violent resistance, and unlike pretty much all other fascists, felt that the cult of violence was an anti-national pathology. In 1945, Roman Dmowski would have been trying to work out whatever accomodation he could with the Stalinists.]
While I understand how someone who was introduced to "Lean On Me" by Club Nouveau at a young, bouncy-castle kind of age might favor it, I don't think it's the better version.
I'm pretty sure I'm older than you, k-sky.
But I'm always going to empathize with people who feel that they've been pushed past the bounds of reasonable discourse by the actions of those in power.
Never figured you for a Tea Partier, natilo.
Not building your case, there.
(I still admire your contention that "Human Nature" is the best Michael Jackson song.)
162: I'm pretty sure I'm older than you, k-sky.
I would not have thought that.
Book of Face reveals that I am three and a half years your senior. And that your Halloween costume was awesome.
You know, Natilo, sometimes what you think will happen after the fact is not what happens at all. Unintended consequences are a bitch.
PS to everyone with the day off today: You're welcome.
re: 156
I think you'd be surprised how little actual people, at the time, despised the Irish Nationalist movement [and even the IRA]. Mainland Britain, even during the bombing campaigns, really didn't hate or despise in the way that a lot of people who've been subjected to a load of bullshit propaganda seem to believe. And I speak as someone who grew up in a relatively sectarian part of Scotland and who has somewhat more experience of the sharp end of this situation than you.
I probably shouldn't sound so confrontational, but this is an issue on which a great deal of bullshit circulates.
The convergence of today's threads seems appropriate for the day. And in case 122 sparked your curiosity, Anal Cunt gets really old really fast, but I still prefer their "Stayin' Alive" to the original.
On the original post, how do people feel about Dave Edmunds' cover of "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll"?
I don't know that it's better than the original, but Lowe's version strikes me as a little bit too clever.
Is it possible that LiveJournal's "Writer's Block" question of the day copied me? "Which songs have been covered better by artists who didn't originally sing them?"
I definitely did not get this from them. This has been on my little scratch sheet forever.
173: So was the original question better or the "cover"?
The convergence of today's threads seems appropriate for the day.
It does, and that's better than ignoring the topic. Though holy fuck who'd'a thought we'd be relitigating the Civil War. Again.
Eggplant parmesan, anyone?
126 I'd like to think things work out well for the alternate Peter Parker, but he probably becomes happily married to Gwen Stacy and living in the suburbs.
Though holy fuck who'd'a thought we'd be relitigating the Civil War. Again.
Think of it as a cover version, and reënactors as tribute bands.
I've always had uncomfortable feelings about tribute bands.
178: Yeah, a lot of them are total farbs.
179: A hitherto unknown term!
My eggplant parmesan is the product of a total farb. I am putting kale in it! I am naught but a polyester soldier.
Here's the perfect example: Poison's cover of the Loggins and Messina's "Your mama don't dance, and your daddy can't rock an droll".
41: Be warned. Spike, it pains me to say this, but in the future Halfordocracy your first comment has ensured a trip to the reeducation camps
Sorry, but I feel that way about most of "Greetings from Asbury Park." Bruce's songwriting was masterful, but his sound had not yet achieved its later awesomeness.
181: Granted that Poison is terrible, what exactly leads you to rank Loggins and Messina any higher as artists ? "House at Pooh Corner"?
I'm surprised that Urge Overkill's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" hasn't come up.
110.2: I installed this Chrome extension and my life has been noticeably improved as a result. Occasionally I find myself scrolling down to the comments below a video, then remember why they're missing, and breathe a sigh of relief.
but I don't think I can argue that it's clearly better than Bessie Smith's version.
Which makes me think of "T'aint nobody's business if I do'. Billie or the original?
Holy crap, that's awesome. Thanks.
The Lemonheads' "Mrs. Robinson" and Sid Vicious' "My Way" both work.
All this hating on the Pet Shop Boys and loving on Bob Dylan makes the baby Jesus cry like a motherfucker. We will tear down the walls of the reeducation camps and march on Halford Palace to a light techno beat. Our shackles will be beaten into disco balls and our jumpers will be ripped down to speedos.
Honestly, there are almost no musicians I hate more than Bob Dylan. Christ almighty.
Oh, Robust.
Next you'll tell me you hate Tom Waits.
Pace, pars. I'm not crazy. I love Waits.
Whew. I contemplated asking how you feel about John Lennon, but I became afraid, very afraid, to ask.
I absolutely hated the Beatles until I saw a Beatles laser light show while tripping balls and then I loved them. Yes, I am a stereotype.
I have no idea if you're serious there.
John Lennon was shit.
Shittier than Jesus.
Christ, or Jesus, nosflow is annoying.
Shittier than Jesus.
But his cover of "Give Peace a Chance" was way better.
Shittier than Jesus.
Johnny Cash's Personal Jesus ... which is an example.
I loved the Beatles till I got sick of them in my teens, and since then have gone through cycles. I've pretty much always loved the White Album even when I couldn't stand hearing it. But I thought hating the Beatles was a pose that went out of style a couple decades ago.
I'm surprised that Urge Overkill's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" hasn't come up.
Me too, and if these were being ranked, that would be #1 by a good margin.
I have a John Lennon acoustic album thing that's pretty cool. It seems to be outtakes or something, with talk in between (Lennon saying "Alright, I'll give it a try"). I find it calming.
Robust hates watermelons, people. There's no accounting for his tastes.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Elvis people and Beatles people.
I am an Elvis person.
What kind of people are Rolling Stones people?
If we're going to discuss Anal Cunt's oeuvre, it should be mentioned that their cover of "American Woman" by the Guess Who kicks metric assloads of weapons-grade ass.
I was listening to Helen Humes today, and up comes Be Baba Leba. It's straight up fifties rock and roll after the first thirty seconds. Dated 1945.
And re Helen Humes, there is something a bit disturbing about listening to hearing a fourteen year old girl singing the dirty blues in her 1927 dates.
In 100 years, you'll be morally condemned for taking that attitude, as reasonable as it might seem today.
I hate watermelon, Bob Dylan, tomatoes of all kinds and, most of the time, mayonnaise. It's like I'm not even a fucking primate over here. I'm an amoeba or some shit.
I'm not a big fan of watermelons or store bought mayo, but otherwise, yes, your bone structure may be at risk of dissolution.
213 You mean you're not saying that in a 100 years our Nambla run world won't find the idea of nervous sounding fourteen year olds singing 'Do What You Did Last Night' perfectly normal?
What kind of people are Rolling Stones people?
Rolling Stones people are Elvis people.
McManly hates tomatoes?
Cripe. That's almost like hating bivalves, which are pretty much like snot, you know.
Can someone tell me whether 220 makes sense?
Thanks.
220 appears to be claiming that tomatoes, like bivalves, are like snot, and hating snot is weird.
It seems like something you should hate, but it's snot.
Speaking of snot: I've been sick for about two weeks with what seemed like a sinus infection and now seems more like bronchitis. My vague folk-wisdom understanding was that something that lasts this long is probably bacterial, and that maybe I should go try to get an antibiotic. But wikipedia tells me bronchitis is almost always viral, in which case that would be useless. So is it worth going to a doctor? (I almost never go to doctors. But I also can't remember the last time I was sick for more than four or five consecutive days.)
Have you got something to lose, aside from an unbroken streak, in going to a doctor? Why not?
Two readings: Many people who hate tomatoes say they object to the innards of certain types of tomatoes, which seem to them to have an objectionable consistency.
Or: When I've said I hate bivalves, I'm told that this is sheer insanity. (Which is about how I view hating tomatoes.)
Just One of Those Things I don't think Cole Porter is one of Shane McGowan's things.
Eh, it's just a pain, and I hate making phone calls. That's kind of irrational, isn't it?
"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon"
As mentioned previously, I always confuse this with "Let Me Sleep Beside You" which contains the line, "Child, you're a woman now"
So I went looking for that song expecting a David Bowie cover and was very confused.
Also, I'm not really a Beatles person or an Elvis person.
Can I be a Woodie Guthrie person (I'm not a Dylan person either)?
183 pains me, as "Lost in the Flood" is one of my alltime favorite songs of all time, albeit influenced by the fact that I conicidentally bought Greetings from Asbury Park the day before Katrina hit.
I like the Beatles, Elvis, and the Rolling Stones, and I like Tom Waits, though in my typical middlebrow manner I prefer "Heart of Saturday Night" era Waits to the later weird period. I've been avoiding calling the doctor about Essear-like symptoms for about two months now. Hate doctors.
Essear-like symptoms
Increased tendency to do physics, blasé about the prospect of teaching, that kind of thing?
I had a cough for two weeks. I thought it was going to be a 48-hour thing but it stretched on, leaving me feeling about 85% which is enough to miss being healthy. I finally called my doctor, he phoned in an antibiotic and I was all good in three days.
Asbury Park is great. For me, Bruce hits quintessence at Born to Run and that still gives me the purest hit of pleasure. But Asbury Park is aglimmer with anxiety of Dylan influence and in more than a few moments you can hear him slay Bobby Z. in his boots.
While I like Dylan, someone needs to hate that fucker. I'm sick of hearing about him. I'm surprised he's not on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone.
My view on the Pet Shop Boys is that they come from the 1980s and therefore, like literally all music fashionable in the 1980s except for some metal and maybe three other bands, totally suck. This is just reality.
The 80s are the gayest decade in rock. Not in dance music, in rock. Once you understand that about the 80s you can appreciate their critical importance.
OK good night now. clearly I missed all the good trolling.
I don't think Cole Porter is one of Shane McGowan's things.
I would pay an immense sum for this album.
225: When I came down with a chesty cough and sore throat recently, I erred on the side of going to the doc, despite my normal stubbornness. Strep test negative, and he diagnosed seasonal-allergy-related post-nasal drip. Allegra-D sufficed to stop the noseflow, and I've been right as rain ever since.
I vote go, if you feel lousy.
I'm pretty sure this is some kind of infection and not my normal seasonal allergies. But I made an appointment for Monday. (Requiring me to skip part of the conference I've been planning for the last six months. Which is actually kind of a welcome excuse; sitting through 8 hours of talks in one day is always pretty awful.)
If your malady is contagious, a few well-placed sneezes ought to shorten those talks right the fuck up.
and he diagnosed seasonal-allergy-related post-nasal drip.
I have that also. I never went to the doctor, but if it were a cold, it would have gone away. Still, this is nothing compared to being allergic to corn pollen while growing up in rural Nebraska.
And Moby lived at the bottom of a corn silo, both ways , uphill, in the snow.
I've had a weird cold since early September. No malaise or anything, just these massively snot-producing sneezing fits a couple of times a day for half an hour or so. In between times, I'm fine. I'd think it was allergies, but it doesn't seem like allergies somehow. But if I ignore it for long enough, it will go away.
But if I ignore it for long enough, it will go away.
That's how I lost the innards of my bicuspid.
247: The big long one from Omaha to Cheyenne.
My childhood was plagued by painful allergies to many things, chiefly snow and uphills and school and the walking thereto and therefrom.
I never had to walk to school because it was on the way to dad's office, but I used to have to walk home from school. And school was halfway across town, so it took 10 minutes.
I walked to and from school almost my entire schooling career. I think 6th grade (all the county's kids went to one 6th-grade-only school in the middle of town) and 12th grade (woo cars!) were the lone exceptions.
I once got a ride home from school with the next door neighbor. It was me, my brother, my sister, the neighbor, and three of his kids going home in a standard cab pick-up. The youngest was sitting on the driver's lap, so he got to steer.
I had to walk uphill and often through the snow to elementary school. This is remarkable only in that Chicago doesn't really have all that many hills.
In high school, I lucked into rides to school, mostly because the older kids needed a drummer around and pitied me. Getting a ride meant you got to smoke cigarettes on the way to school, which was quite the prize to a freshman.