Hey Roy,
Thanks for this and all your recent great posts. Stay close to the board.
This is a segment of an interview I did with Andrew Earles last year. It's a longwinded way of answering your question, but I think it says what I feel:
What about the cover tunes? What are your favorite cover versions?
I’ll begin with a blanket disclaimer.
For one thing, more artists are writing their own songs these days, fewer and fewer seem to be doing other people’s. But even among the ones who do, “competition” (not the best word, but let’s let it stand for now) among writers for space on a CD is unthinkably intense. An album has space for about 12 cuts — well, slightly more now, with CDs. Let’s say 14 to 16. Of those, maybe five to seven will be written by the artist himself, or the producer, or co-written by the artist with someone in the band.
Of the other tracks, most will be standards or at least well-known songs. Lennon and McCartney are still being recorded. So are Dylan, Bacharach-David, Carole King and of course the American Songbag writers like Rogers-Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Kander and Ebb and the like. And that’s not to mention the modern singer/songwriters.
That leaves a small sliver of room for me.
Anytime an artist chooses one of my songs to fill one of those slots, I’m grateful beyond words, far too grateful to stand in judgment of his or her rendition.
That said, I will tell you this: I know there are songwriters who believe their version is the only right and correct way to present their song. If one takes liberties or gives it a new slant, they feel violated. I think Sondheim has that clear and specific vision of his work. So does Jimmy Webb, who almost always orchestrates and conducts his new tunes with the artists who cut them.
I’m not from that school.
I like it most when an artist gives my song something that surprises me — shows me an aspect of my song that I never knew was there.
Case in point: Back in the 80s, a fellow named Jon Otway, a Brit Punk-rocker recorded “Cheryl’s Goin’ Home.” His performance of it was in a film called “Urghhh! A Music War.” It’s wild and metallic and the intensity is cranked all the way up to 10. Friends who have heard my version can’t believe it when I say I love Otway’s. He makes it theatrical, skirting the line between playing up the desperation and playing the whole thing for laughs (even adding a little melodramatic rap riff).
The point is that he found something in the song I never knew was there and he reached a whole segment of listeners that my version might never have found.
Of my favorite cuts, I guess number one would be Richie Havens’ version of “How the Nights Can Fly.” It’s completely different from mine. But, with an artist like Richie, that’s what you expect. He makes everything he does totally his own.
When my manager heard Richie’s version for the first time, after hearing mine for months, she said, “It’s great. But it’s a different song.” In a way she’s right.
Also up there with my favorite covers is Nancy Sinatra’s “Long Time Woman.”
I was never a Nancy Sinatra fan. But she presents my song with a simple, unadorned honesty that compels one to listen and feel. The complete reverse of “Boots,” which, in my opinion, she overplays. When I wrote “Long Time Woman,” I never thought it would ever be covered — much less by a woman. But she sings it with a powerful restraint, never giving it more than it needs. I love it.
I like Keith Relf’s “Mr. Zero” on which Eric Clapton is playing guitar.
I like Hoyt Axton’s “I Love To Sing.”
And I like the two very different versions of “Counting” I’ve heard. One by Marianne Faithful, the other recorded just recently by Jamie Hoover.
And of the 80-plus covers of “Elusive Butterfly,” (again, no one believes me) I favor Petula Clark’s slow, simple statement of the song. She only does one verse and does it in a very thoughtful laid-back tempo.
And, perhaps for sentimental reasons, I like “Down in Suburbia” by the Turtles. It was the first-ever cut of a Lind song. They recorded it before I had so much as one release as an artist.
Cher’s version of “Come to Your Window” was also recorded long before anyone knew who the hell I was, months before my version of “Elusive Butterfly” was released. I still feel grateful for their belief in those songs.
Anyone interested in reading the whole interview can follow this link:
http://www.failedpilot.com/2007/03/10/r ... -bob-lind/