Favorite Cover Songs

I was asked about cover songs and appropriation of lyrics/lines.  Yeah, we can go all high lit. on this issue, but I'm more curious about reader's fav. cover songs (e-mails welcome for all you shy ones.) 

What are they?  Why do you like them? 

Basically I just like the idea of someone making something, which is then used by another, rendered in their own idiom to either deepen or complexify (or, hell, even redeem, since were not in crit. lit. lingo) the original thing made.  Of course, when dealing with music (and poetry?) you get situations where the artistic vision of the 'original' artist is constrained by that artists technical skill - or even by the single genre or unique situation of the work as it is recorded.  Hence, my love of cross genre/mode renditions, re-visitations, covers and homages.  Also my love of actually saying/doing/performing the work; it's unpopular, but I'd argue that a poem does not exist on the page, rather, poetry only exists as poetry (not potential) when it's in the brain of a listener/reader - hopefully a brain that's been engaged though its quite cleverly evolved aural/oral sensory organs (that is, in speaking or hearing the poem spoken).

But back to the cover songs.  Right now (at the whims of the randomizer) I'm loving:

Slater Kinney's cover of Boston's "More Than A Feeling"
Siouxsie and the Banshee's cover of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence"
Cake's cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"
The Be Good Tanya's cover of Dylan's "Lakes of Pontchartain"
Chantal Kreviazuk's cover of John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane"  (link's to a hideous video, great voice though.)

Comments

[Jen]

Human Nature - David Mead (original: Michael Jackson)

[pjm]

I have an entire playlist of covers, I love them so much, especially the ones which border on genre-shifting. Imagine the Cardigans doing Ozzy's "Ironman," for example. The Foo Fighters doing "Baker Street" (original I think is Gerry Rafferty - think 70s.) Letters to Cleo on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams". Everclear doing the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" (that takes some balls.) And of course, the Ben Folds version of Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" (I hope I have the original right), because Ben Folds is so good at doing stuff like that with a straight face.

[Atomic]

Oh my god! This is exactly the kind of distraction I need 3 weeks before I leave my job. Some favourites are:

Nouvelle Vague "Love will tear us apart"
Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy"
Softcell "Tainted Love"
Johnny Cash "Hurt"
Captain and Tennille "Love will keep us together"
Chaka Khan "I Feel for You"
Mark Ronson "Just" (a recent and very guilty pleasure)
Stevie Wonder "We can work it out" (amazing since I hate the Beatles)
Talking Heads "Take me to the River"

I also need to see your Sleater-Kinney and raise you the Lunachicks cover of More than a Feeling. Amazing.

And on the subject of worst covers (were we?) I put forward David Hasselhoff's cover of "Hooked on a Feeling". Although life in Eastern Europe would never have been the same without it.

[Brett]

Check out Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar" (featured on the Juno soundtrack): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRiyN_Zn5L8

[m.s.]

ahhh!!
first off, i do love me some johnny cash covers.
but i gotta say my all-time fav. cover is Quasi doing Prince's "take me with you."
who doesn't love to roll down the windows and speed through town whilst janet weiss rocks a heart on?