There’s an intriguing question that segues on nicely from Jason’s post at Catallaxy linking to Johnny Cash’s cover of a Nine Inch Nails tune. My immediate thought was that Cash’s version of Nick Cave’s rather thrashy “The Mercy Seat” is a much better interpretation of the song than the original. When, and why, are covers superior to the “authentic” interpretation of a song by its author?
Over the fold, I’ve posted Nick Cave performing “The Mercy Seat”. I couldn’t find a vid of Cash’s cover, but I’ve found a random video using the song as a soundtrack. So do tell – how does the comparison play out? The question gets more complicated because the vid of Cave playing the song live is very slowed down and very different in mode and tone from the recorded version. So, in a way, any performance of a song is a “cover” (and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Cave had been influenced by the Cash cover).
The Cash version (visuals can be ignored, or not, as you choose):
The Cave version:
Frente – Bizzare Love Triangle.
Which Frente song?
I thought Nick Cave was doing a cover of Cashâs âThe Mercy Seatâ? until a friend put me right! So if you don’t know, how do you know? Is what you hear first “the original”, or what you like first?
All this could radically complexify music trivia nights…
I did know that “Hurt” was a 9 Inch Nails track – it’s a very good song indeed. I can’t remember who it was – I heard another cover recently which I really liked – with a female singer. Multiple covers are always a tribute!
There are a few recursions going on here, I suspect – Cave is influenced by Cash and Cohen and Waits, Cash covers Cave…
Frente’s cover of New Order’s Bizzare Love Triangle…cover done in 1994…all slow and pretty much Angie Hart’s voice and nothing else.
Youtube vid here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ1c9ErCn7w
Original 1986 New Order version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi8amtlP6ps
That was one of the breakthrough electronica songs…highly produced, big in clubs I think, all over the mainstream charts.
The versions are completely different and both are perfect, I reckon.
Yep, I’d be inclined to agree. Frente so captured the early 90s mood, and New Order, well…
Angie has just started a blog:
http://www.angie-hart.com/
New songs on her myspace, and a new album out this year, she says there:
http://www.myspace.com/angiehart
The video for the Cash version of Hurt makes me cry.
There’s many copies of it on youtube – see here:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=cash hurt
Damnit. That link was broken. Here’s a direct link to one. If this is broken too, google for ‘cash hurt’, and click the ‘Video’ tab.
No idea if embedding in comments works, but here goes:
Doesn’t work, but if the other links don’t, follow the link in my post to Jason’s post where he has the Cash cover of “Hurt” embedded.
I should point out that Cave’s standard live version of The Mercy Seat (which isn’t the version above) has always been quite different from the original. I don’t know if this pre-dates Cash’s cover however.
From what I’ve seen of Cave’s live performances they are usually quite different from the original tracks. He seems to optimize the live versions based on the intracacies of a specific gig, well, at least that’s my impression. One thing is for sure, he gives a mesmerising live show.
I’ve never seen him live. Sob!
Unless the club scenes in Wings of Desire count:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191/
I think I’ve said before it would have been cool to have been a new wave young thing in 80s Berlin!
Sticking to one of my my fav genres (all things Bowie):
Bowie’s Man who SOld the World is a classic, and Nirvana’s faithful redition just gave it a contemporary twist which still remained faithful to the original. Both as good as each other methinks.
Sorrow was originally by The McCoys – though i’ve never heard their version and can’t imagine what its like. (Eternally grateful to anyone who can dig it up btw.)
Lastly the evocative “My Death” performed live was a cover of Jacques Brel’s song. Amazing song, but in the context of a nihilistic Ziggy, is absolutely sublime.
As for the ending….just perfect.
Agreed about “My Death”, sc.
There’s also some good contemporary covers of Bowie.
“Let’s Dance” – M. Ward
And the Audreys have an awesome cover of INXS’ “Don’t Change”.
How About The Herd’s Hip Hop version of Redgum’s I Was Only 19.
And the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7TXBuVUQJw
Dare I say it but Hendrix’ cover if His Bobness’ ‘All Along the Watchtower’ is the definitive version. So much so that even His Bobness channels Hendrix when performing AATW.
One of the things about covers is the way that singer-songwriters are (over)valued/ I don’t know if this is a 60′s thing, a wow you do both thing, or just some sense of ownership of the art that makes it more authentic.
I love both Johnny Cash and Nick Cave but I like the Nick Cave version better. Johnny does the contemplative bits of the song well but fluffs it on the angry bits – Nick wasn’t too far from the angrier/clangier From Her to Eternity phase of the Bad Seeds here and only a little bit further away from the Birthday Party.
Cover versions either reveal some aspect of the original song that you didn’t think about – Cake’s ‘I will Survive’ works wonderfully in a stripped back way. They make you laugh in a nun on a wrestling match kind of way other Bad Liver’s cowboy version ‘Lust for Life’ and then there’s the whole Stairway to Heaven/ Money or the Gun album. Then there’s the simple they just do it better. I’ve always thought covers of Prince songs were better covered than done by him. Elvis changed Bridge over Trouble Water from a bit of a whinge to this epic clash of the planets and Nick Cave (once described in about ’86 as the only man in the world that sincerely liked Elvis) took in the Ghetto away from (ever so slightly) cornball. And then there’s also the sincere tribute The Pet Shop Boy’s ‘Go West’ for example.
That’s enough for now.
The Frente version of Bizarre Love Triangle – ugh, ugh, ugh. A travesty that ought never to be played again.
It ought never to have happened.
Johnny Cash, on the other hand, is a genius. I love his Leonard Cohen covers as well.
Not quite the Dead Kennedys.
I agree with aspects of what anthony says. Cave is an Old Testament Preacher – the mercy seat one of the supreme examples of this and I find his delivery is much more fitting – its the last will and testament of a man condemned on the electric chair for god’s sake!
Now for a really interesting Johnny Cash cover version, I think you can’t go past his version of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’.
Tyro, agreed: that song is hilarious, so deadpan but so drenched in irony … With Cave and Cash it seems a bit chicken and the egg – Cave absorbs so many influences it’s hard to think of him as original, but then ‘derivative’ doesn’t do him justice either. His version of “In the Ghetto” is just amazing.
Only know the recorded versions of Cave and Cash’s ‘Mercy Seat’, but I like the sonic electricity of the Cave version – which is fitting, really.
Cash’s performance/ recording lends itself to listening through the discourse of ‘late style’: knowing a performer/ artist is near the end of their life the work becomes a final statement or close to death encounter etc. I can’t help but hear Cash’s ‘Mercy Seat’ as Cash reconciling himself to final judgement.
How about Bowie’s cover of Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’. Both great versions IMO
Also, Norma Waterson does very interesting paired themed covers on ‘The Very Thought of You’, including covers of Richard Thompson, Nick Drake John Martyn…
http://www.rykodisc.com/Catalog/dump/rykoalbums_1035.asp
…e.g. with Nick Drake’s ‘River Man’, she sings Martyn’s song about Drake. Her method definitely adds something special to the covered songs. Here’s a better link where Waterson explains what she has done.
href=”http://http://www.watersoncarthy.com/index.php?module=Album&func=detail&id=19″>
(trying that link again)
if it doesn’t work this time i give up
Here you go. Just paste the link in without any syntax and WP will convert it into a hyperlink for you.
http://www.watersoncarthy.com/index.php?module=Album&func=detail&id=19
aml:
if you click the “link” button above the comments field, a box pops up for you to paste the link into. If you do this with no text highlighted, it’ll look like Mark’s. Otherwise, it’ll look like a linky bit of text of your choosing.
Sorry, but Cave shits all over Cash. So much power and intensity. Cash does it as a melancholic country tune (of course) but it fails to have the same impact. That live version might start out slower and less dissonant than the original recorded version, but by god he hammers away up to that climax. Amazing.
I have to agree that Hendrix nailed “All along the watchtower”.
I recall a friend of mine (with shocking taste in music) remarking that the
Rod Stewart version of Downtown Train was better than the Tom Waits original because Rod had a better voice! Uh huh. Apart from the fact that it isn’t one of my fave Waits’ tunes, Rod sounds like he walked into the recording studio, knocked it off while he was wondering where to go for lunch (in the clip he is wondering how good his hair looks). Soulless. Awful.
Links in case the above inline links didn’t work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a0HhectC4c
Conversely (and perversely?) I am quite fond of the Dinosaur Jr take on Just like Heaven.
Shit-o-dear some of those old vids are hilarious!
Again, links in case the inline ones don’t work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORc5Td_T6og
Maybe this should be posted on Anna’s thread. But I happen to like it so:
And there’s more where that came from – just search YouTube for “Leningrad Cowboys”!
The main reason why covers can be better is when artists can reinterpret the songs and bring a new depth to it that makes it almost new.
This would particularly be the case Leonard Cohen songs where covers are always better than the original and artists often give the songs something more than what was originally there, the song “Halleujah” being a prime example.
A good recent example is Seu Jorge’s album of David Bowie covers. They’ve become acoustic songs sung in Portugese.
The Pixies were always reliable on the cover front.
“Winterlong” by Neil Young, a brilliant Yardbirds “Evil Hearted You” (in Spanish) and “I can’t forget” by Leonard Cohen. BTW I agree that LC’s arrangements were invariably crap apart from the early years. He has a good voice still but god he needs to kill his producers.
The Cohen thing can be applied to Dylan (gasp! heresey!!) in the case of “I’ll remember you” I was so moved by it in the film “Masked and Anonomymous” and when i went to find the studio version of it….peeeeyooooo did it stink. And the new version is not on the Soundtrack! I’d love to download it somewhere.
Bill Bailey: Do the Hokey Kokey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP1tkspU5yw
And you can still dance to this replated golden oldie drunk.
I would have thought it almost impossible to improve on Kate Bush’s oeuvre, but Placebo’s Running up that Hill (albeit with KB) ain;’t bad.
If you email me James at gmail I will see you get that version of I’ll Remember You
I dispute that! I completely and utterly dispute that. There are some good Leonard Cohen songs, but Cohen’s voice is part of what made his songs great.
Along with the genius lyrics and the tunes, of course.
Sorry, that should have read
…there are some good Leonard Cohen covers…
d’oh.
“Primitive” – by The Groupies 1966, covered by the Cramps. original best.
“Heard it through the Grapevine” Marvin Gaye definitive version- best cover by the Slits – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRBo8hVVRCE (this youtube link has some unrelated digital animation visual with the slits version as the soundtrack – other slits stuff on youtube – shows how pretty crap they were – but this link is pretty funny – the first bit is from “Jubilee” the movie by Derek Jarman – bad punk girls!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRBo8hVVRCE )
The Slits are actually touring here in March. (I might cough up $40 bucks just to see who is still alive in the audience.)
first enjoyed ‘Nick the Stripper’ in Birthday Party mode, at the Paddington Town Hall circa – 82?
“Sorry, but Cave shits all over Cash.”
Not even on the Bizzaro world is this true. No way no how no where.
“…by god he [Cave] hammers away up to that climax…”
If you like your music beaten to a dented flatness, then I guess he’s your man. And it is kind of funny by the end, I guess. At least it’s got that going for it.
d
Agree with many above that the essence of a good cover is a determined struggle to rediscover the song in a different dimension, to make it new, and in a different substance. But wow, the post-rock prejudice here is certainly showing.
One of the most startling musical sea-changes in modern pop music, I think, was the transformation of the morbid Teutonic dirge “The Moritat of Mackie Messer” into the breathtaking jazz standard “Mack the Knife.” It’s quite a little story: Brecht/Weill to Blitzstein to Satchmo to Bobby Darin, who at last gave it its definitive polish and perfection (a rare achievement indeed, to improve on Mr. Louis Armstrong).
There’s a whole epic of diabolical musical tension latently contained in just this one phrase…
“Could that someone
be
Mack the Knife?”
Well, but back to rock n roll…
I think the gold standard for rock covers is the Stones’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me),” and Talking Heads’ insane studio version of “Take Me To The River.”
A couple of other things I like, for no particular reason…
Two versions of “I Wanna Be Your Dog”: the screeching scorching live one that Kim Gordon did with Sonic Youth (highlight lyric: “NOW I WANNA feel your @*#&GFN $YUY$@!!!”); and then the mellow country version done by Uncle Tupelo. Whoa, Nellie.
I love ELP’s live rendition of Moussorgsky’s “The Hut of Baba Yaga” and “The Great Gate of Kiev.” I think Greg Lake really captured a special moment on the latter’s vocal.
Sonic Youth does a hilariously tense, psycho-killer sendup of Madonna’s “Into the Groove” courtesy of Thurston Moore. And Kim G.’s sarcastic, blase karaoke version of “Addicted to Love” is hysterical, too.
The USC Trojans marching band does a creditable cover version of “Tusk,” so I hear.
Captain Beefheart inserts a delightfully weird combo version of “Gimme Dat Ole Time Religion” while interpolating a slice of Steve Reich’s “Come Out” on his awe-inspiring original, “Moonlight On Vermont.” And his band’s bizarre reworking of “Mammy’s Little Baby Loves Shortnin’ Bread” as the rave-up on “Pachuco Cadaver” is a thing of beauty.
The kings of live cover performances were of course The Replacements in their prime. I seem to recall a live version of “Gimme Shelter” of theirs, that rocked the center of the earth.
But that was all in another life. Ah yes, I reeemember eeet weeeelll….
Back in the 70′s I won the Mackay Yamaha Organ Music Festival Under 8 division with my pedals-and-all rendition of ‘Shortnin’ Bread’.
The judges clearly struggled for words to describe my prodigious music talent, as the only comment left on my score scheet was “Nice Dress”.
(It was floor length lime green satin).
Kim, in response to your comment way up the thread, Nick Cave was my first ever gig almost half a lifetime ago. He set a precedent that few could follow up. I guess we always remember our first…
They Might Be Giant’s cover of Istanbul, not Constantinopleis great and a groovy film clip too.
If you’ve ever seen Cave do Mercy Seat live (I have 3 times) you will know that it is one of the most amazingly powerful songs ever. The way it builds in intensity is incredible
On the other hand, me playing it on the ukulele does no justice at all.
)
Frank Bennett surely deserves a mention. Lots of samples at http://www.frankbennett.com/discography.htm
Cave released an acoustic version of the Mercy Seat (which is reminscent in style to what Johnny Cash eventually did) around the same time as he released the original. But I have no doubt Cave would place himself well beneath Cash in any ranking of greatness – in fact I think I’ve seen him quoted saying something along those lines.
Cave’s covers of The Carnival is Over, All Tomorrow’s Parties and Hey Joe compare fairly well with the original. His cover Long Time Man is particularly good.
I haven’t found terribly many of the multitude of Cohen covers I’ve heard come up to the mark. Perhaps The Pixies I Can’t Forget and Dave McComb’s Don’t Go Home With your Hardon. and perhaps Cave doing Avalanche.
Good Cohen cover:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=2188
Speaking of Nick Cave Covers, Denis Walter, of YTT and Carols dfame does a not bad version of The Ship Song, which even got airplay on Triple J when it was released in the early 90′s.
Even Nick liked it.
http://www.nick-cave.net/interview.php?id=3
“Nick Cave was my first ever gig almost half a lifetime ago.”
Was it at The Venue with Screaming Jay Hawkins in late 1985? That was a mighty night. I had a knee trembler in the bog with an ASIO employee during his cover of Black Betty. Great fucking music.
“They Might Be Giant’s cover of Istanbul, not Constantinopleis great and a groovy film clip too.”
Like to hear and see that. The original turned me onto those that first did that weirdo chant. Then I heard their version of “Satisfaction” and it was love at first listen.
I also do purely love Sinatra’s late sixties latinised version of “Leaving On A Jet Plane”, Tom Jones ravishing “Venus”, Roy Budd reworking the “Get Carter” theme and New Order’s cover of “Blue Monday”.
“On the other hand, me playing it on the ukulele does no justice at all. ”
Oh, no need to be so coy. Pop it up on You Tube and let us be the judge.
And I second Oz’s recommendation of Seu Jorge getting all Portuguese on Bowie’s arse (as featured in The Life Aquatic). Hearing well known songs in another language does make you focus on the melody as opposed to the words. And old David’s (earlier) material does hold well up under such treatment.
Tom Jones doing “Motherless Child” ain’t half bad either…
Kim, that Beth Orton cover doesn’t do it for me.
A Cohen cover that actually got me into Cohen was the Straitjacket Fits version of So Long Marianne. I can’t be at all objective about it, I love it.
I don’t have a copy, but Flying Nun released an ABBA tribute album that was quite well received.
Darryl, I wasn’t trying to say that Cave was a better/greater/more amazing musician than Johnny Cash (I don’t know enough about Cash to make a judgement) but that Cave’s versions of the Mercy Seat are much much much better than the Cash cover. The one on Tender Prey may indeed be “beaten to a dented flatness” but even that live version where he doesn’t have massive amounts of noise he generates tension with his voice and the pacing and piano .. and well .. everything.
The Feelies covering Patti Smith’s “Dancing Barefoot” is a joy, and while I don’t endorse Nouvelle Vague across the board, they give Cabaret Voltaire’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” another veneer of fear & loathing I reckon.
Nick Cave and Screaming Jay Hawkins as a double bill has yet to be topped I reckon. How lucky we were. Mind you, we were lucky having The Venue as well, but who knew it back then? A blinding night of hell-spawned blues that was as well. Or cabaret. Okay, both.
And on the Mercy Seat debate, I too love both passionately, but the knowledge that JC wasn’t long for the world, and was most likely tickled by regrets of his own always gave his version an awesome resonance for me. And now he’s gone, it’s at another level.
Low & Dirty 3 did a cover of Neil Young’s Down by the River – shimmering and haunting, while Neil’s was clunky and bludgeoning.
Bela Lugosi’s Dead – originally a Bauhaus song?
“I dispute that! I completely and utterly dispute that. There are some good Leonard Cohen songs, but Cohen’s voice is part of what made his songs great.
Along with the genius lyrics and the tunes, of course.”
Rebekkah, you are right and nothing would be better than hearing the master perform his own work. His voice is perfect for his songs, but as I said up there. The producers!! and the arrangments!!! Yech. Sometimes listening to original Cohen is so frustrating. The ability of lesser talents to take the song and sound better is evidence.
AG,
you got me there – Bauhaus indeed.
And I have no single malt whisky to blame for the error either. Perhaps a week of 30 degree plus in Melbs is the culprit…arrrgghhh.
And John Cale’s version of “Halleluhah” is purty definitive I reckon. Wonder what Len reckons? We’ve had Margaret Simons and Kenneth Nguyen drop in lately when their names are invoked, is Len up a mountain at present, or could he be in an airport lounge reading LP?
Hey via collins, next hot day, try yourself mint juleps.
In the morning, while you’re having your first cup of tea, boil a jug of water and pour sugar in it until it dissolves. When it’s lukewarm, add sprigs of fresh mint, then put it in the freezer. When you come home from work, put ice in a big glass, pour in your sugar solution and a nice bourbon of your choice, garnishing with a bit more mint and some lime.
Of course, the cover version involves Jim Beam, Home Brand lemonade and some tic-tacs; it’s not nearly so nice. Works, though.
via c,must be the gothic skies of Southern Tassie that’s brings Bauhaus to mind, as well as watching ‘The Hunger’ recently, where ‘Bela Lugosi’ kicks off the chic, pre-buffy vampire thingo.
Cale’s version of Elvis P’s Heartbreak Hotel, puts a Primal Scream intensity the latent loneliness of Elvis’ recorded version. Heartbreak never sounded so . . . heartbreaking.
DD, don’t mind if I do.
Picked up a litre of grappa in Europe recently, and was amazed to be handed a booklet of hip & groovy cocktail recipes.
I thought grappa was made for men over the age of 65 to drop in their first morning coffee to take the edge off the day.
Does it count as a cover if it is a folk song? If so, it’s hard to get past the whole of the Dropkick Murphys backcatalogue of Irish, American, and Australian folk songs.
For example,
“The fields of Athenry” [link]
“workers song” [link]
“which side are you on” [link]
Some girl with black hair was on spicks and specks the other night and she had the most bestest voice: everyone was saying they were going to cry…. a little bit of Angie Hart to it but so strong… I was going to say a bit like Katie Steele but even better actually!