Top Three Covers

First, some hedgy attempts at definitions.  A good cover sometimes improves on a song that was just okay to begin with.  A great cover takes an already strong song and finds new and valid meaning in it.  The best covers might also represent an interesting, or at least personally satisfying, connection between originator and reinterpreter.  Here are three of my favorites, in no particular order (N.B. As I was writing, I thought of at least three more candidates.  Expect, perhaps, a slightly more cheerful follow-up list):

Paul Westerberg covers “Nowhere Man” by The Beatles

Even though this song is about the eponymous Nowhere Man, not sung by him, Westerberg’s rendering adds a satisfying layer of pathos and validates that crucial line: “Isn’t he a bit like you and me?”  This plaintive and folky interpretation suggests he is more than “a bit” like the aimless man in the song.  The conception of the sound of the cover succeeds, too, as  Westerberg’s lone voice adds a measure of reflectiveness to the song (especially since, post-Replacements you could argue…).  The single voice is accompanied only by the simple arpeggiations on the guitar,  with the exception of the haunting woodwind that sometimes peeks through the main sounds to reveal the closing phrase from “Taps.”  Very nice indeed.

Ryan Adams covers “Wonderwall” by Oasis

Adams takes the line “Maybe…You’re gonna be the one that saves me” and reimagines the song as a plea to be saved rather than a more straightforward attempt to say to her “things that he would / Like to say to her /…but I don’t know how.”  Though the fuller sound of the original is effective, the pain in the song also suggests an edge of anger, a layer absent in this stripped down, sorrowful version.  Hearing the crack in Ryan Adams’ voice as he puts the emphasis on “maybe” rather than “you’re gonna be the one,” refocuses the song in a fundamental way:  the person doing the saving is no longer the concept in question.  Rather, the very idea of whether he’s savable, or worth saving, is what this version of the song considers.

Allison Moorer covers “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” by Dolly Parton

Though I do like the original Dolly Parton version of this song, it sounds like someone singing an anthem in church.  There’s no question that the singer believes in the optimistic message she’s preach-singing, but there’s not much authenticity in the hyper-produced gospel styling (which is, I must admit, a bit of a guilty pleasure).  But the scratchy and atmospheric Allison Moorer cover sounds like someone who’s acutally in that moment, at the verge of dawn, trying to convince herself of the lyric’s optimism.  This cover is especially interesting as it seems to “get” the song in a much for meaningful sense than the version by the songwriter herself.