20 covers that are better than the originals

From [here](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/11/20-cover-versions-of-classic-songs-better-than-originals)

# 20 Cover Versions of Classic Songs That Improve on the Originals

From Robert Wyatt and the Monkees to Whitney Houston and . . . Robert Wyatt, here are 20 revelatory takes on classic tunes to surprise and delight even the most ardent music snobs.

BY

-   [GLENN KENNY](https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/glenn-kenny)

NOVEMBER 26, 2015 9:00 AM


Left, from Michael Ochs Archives, right, by Val Wilmer, both from Getty Images.

It can start with a Justin Bieber joke.

The Internet may be revenue boondoggle for plenty of worthy musicians, and that sucks, but it does make sharing enthusiasms and discoveries a lot easier. A little while back I was cracking wise on the subject of Justin and a pal remarked that the tune I seemed to be humming, by his lights, was “I’m a Believer,” or rather “I’m a Belieber.” To which I responded that, as long as it was the Robert Wyatt version, it was O.K. with me. My buddy hadn’t heard that version, and once he  [found it online](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ivg0cDBgo), he checked it out and pronounced it “magical,” ’cause it is.

And so it begins.

What follows is a  _highly_  subjective gallery/mixtape of cover versions that top the originals. They’re not necessarily inherently superior, but they do give the songs a dimension—sometimes artistic, sometimes commercial, sometimes highly eccentric—that you don’t find in the originals. A couple of the unavoidable usual suspects are here, but mainly this list aims to surprise.

**1. “I’m a Believer” (Composed by Neil Diamond; first sung by the Monkees; covered by Robert Wyatt.)**

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It’s widely known that Neil Diamond was a Brill Building song craftsperson before his singing career took off, and “Believer” is one of his signature tunes. The  [1966 Monkees version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts)  was a deserved hit. But this art-rock-inflected rendering by British drummer and singer Robert Wyatt, his first single after a calamitous accident that confined him to a wheelchair, is an alchemical transformation: a pop hymn if you will. The U.S. art-rock group Tin Huey (whose Chris Butler would go on to pen “Christmas Wrapping”) covered it in Wyatt style in the late 70s, too.

**2. “Respect” (Composed and first sung by Otis Redding; covered by Aretha Franklin.)**

African-American musicians have a long history of using the cover version as a form of both conversation and competition. Ultimate male soul singer  [Otis Redding wrote and recorded this in 1965](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvC9V_lBnDQ)  as an outright, off-the-cuff stomper. It’s great. Less than two years later ultimate female soul singer Aretha Franklin did a little re-writing (including the amazing “find out what it means to me” bit) and came up with an anthem. It’s greater.

**3. “Memphis” (Composed and first sung by Chuck Berry; covered by John Cale.)**

No one in rock ’n’ roll ever wrote a better story song than Chuck Berry, and this one, a plea to talk with a lost love that ends in a sad little twist, is a great one.  [Chuck’s jaunty version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ezeUM6c74)finds new dimensions in a darker, tricksier, more pained arrangement by crafty Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale.

**4. “All Along the Watchtower” (Composed and first sung by Bob Dylan; covered by Jimi Hendrix.)**

On Dylan’s modestly scaled post-motorcycle-crash album  _John Wesley Harding_,  [“Watchtower”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyIlDPLDCP0)  sounds like an unusually cryptic, Biblically inflected folk song. Jimi Hendrix’s loud, full-bodied version sounds like  _Apocalypse Now._

**5. “Me and Bobby McGee” (Composed by Kris Kristofferson; first sung by Roger Miller; covered by Janis Joplin.)**

Another classic.  [Roger Miller does a crackerjack job with the Kris Kristofferson song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZvsxe1CD-c), his unmistakable drawl underscoring the heartache. But Joplin’s modulated wildness makes the song’s “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” register in the most vivid, exhilarating way possible.

**6. “Watermelon Man” (Composed and first performed by Herbie Hancock; covered by Mongo Santamaría.)**

Herbie Hancock was only 22 when he  [wrote and recorded this tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbHJHPTikQA), a catchy, swinging blues. And his 1962 original, with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and sax man Dexter Gordon contributing mighty solos, is a kick. But Latin percussionist Mongo Santamaría chopped it down, partied it up, and made it a chart hit in 1963. Hancock cut a fusion version of the tune with his Headhunters band in 1973.

**7. “Maybe I’m Amazed” (Composed and first sung by Paul McCartney; covered by Rod Stewart and Faces.)**

One of many Linda love songs by Paul McCartney,  [his original cut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm2YyVZBL8U)  features a vocal that’s Paul at his grittiest, although even Paul at his grittiest is still Paul. The version by pub-rock progenitors Faces features late bassist Ronnie Lane taking the first verse, with Rod Stewart picking it up and taking it home in fine fashion, making it the ultimate Bad Boy love ballad in a way that the Cute Beatle couldn’t.

**8. “The Ballad of Easy Rider” (Composed by Roger McGuinn with Bob Dylan; first performed by the Byrds; covered by Fairport Convention with Sandy Denny.)**

According to legend, Bob Dylan scrawled the first four lines on a cocktail napkin, Roger McGuinn ran with it, and soon Dennis Hopper had a closing-credits song for his 1969 movie.  [The Byrds version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWz6ubvUyo4)  feels—polished production aside—a little hazy, almost indifferent. A far rawer track, the cover by British folk-rock combo Fairport Convention has a lead vocal by Sandy Denny that’s convulsively heartbreaking, with guitarist Richard Thompson’s grace notes wailing just as sad and true.

**9. “The ‘In’ Crowd” (Composed by Billy Page; first performed by Dobie Grey; covered by the Ramsey Lewis Trio and again by Bryan Ferry.)**

A very swinging R&B track with clique-boasting lyrics that many would find “problematic” today, this did well for singer  [Dobie Grey in 1964](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOWO--z1S8A), but even better that year for the Ramsey Lewis Trio, whose  [jazz version charted and made the song iconically cool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsFST-7Hx-Y). The 1974 Bryan Ferry cover recasts the song as a sinister semi-joke, capped by an incendiary and mad guitar solo by Davy O’List.

**10. “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” (Composed by Ray Davies; first performed by the Kinks; covered by Van Halen.)**

The  [1965 Kinks song is a keeper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqrwsGrfv7M)  in its original, and to some Kultists to say that the Van Halen version betters it is sacrilege. And I’m not one to swear by Eddie and David Lee’s version of “You Really Got Me Now,” either. Still. Here Van Halen sucks all the twee out of the Kinks original and delivers a crushing track that asks the title questions with terrific oomph.

**11. “Kaw-Liga” (Composed by Hank Williams and Fred Rose; first performed by Williams; covered by Charley Pride.)**

If you ever doubted the idea that Hank Williams was a genius, just  [listen to this 1953 tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_c1A8tmHuI)and ponder the fact that it makes you care about a wooden sculpture. A silly song, but a country classic, and one that golden-voiced African-American country singer Charley Pride showed some genuine courage in covering in 1969. His version, recorded live, was a hit and bolstered his rep something fierce.

**12. “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” (Composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney; first performed by the Beatles; covered by Joe Cocker.)**

The riffs and lyrical snatches that make up the  [side-two medley of  _Abbey Road_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLF1EvDcca8)  are all memorable, but do any of them constitute a “real” song? Joe Cocker answered the question with his raucous cover of the absurd McCartney hard-rocker. Cocker’s cover of “A Little Help from My Friends” is another classic, of course, but here he proves something that the original doesn’t.

**13. “Fire and Rain” (Composed and first performed by James Taylor; covered by Bobby Womack.)**

Early in his career, James Taylor was a singer-songwriter in a painfully autobiographical mode:  [this song tells of his learning of a friend’s suicide and his own struggles with addiction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ALnh3w32VE). Soul singer Bobby Womack, a mean songwriter himself, prefaces this version by asserting that he has to do it his own way, and he does. Womack, who faced plenty of demons in his own life, understands the pain of the tune in a very specific way, and pushes that through with bracing honesty.

**14. “Needles and Pins” (Composed by Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche; first performed by Jackie DeShannon; covered by the Ramones.)**

Written by future U.S. senator Sonny Bono (who, as a good Catholic boy, really liked to refer to prayer in his lyrics; see also “Laugh at Me”) and future Neil Young crony Jack Nitzsche while the pair were Phil Spector apostles, this tune,  [first recorded in 1963 by Jackie DeShannon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrhcVp1FTwk), had a distinct British-invasion flavor despite its all-American origins. The follow-up cover, by Merseybeat combo the Searchers, actually made it a British-invasion hit. The Ramones, not just punks but scholars and admirers of ALL the aforementioned artists, gave the tune its most nakedly yearning version on the 1978  _Road to Ruin_.

**15. “Try a Little Tenderness” (Composed by James Campbell, Reginald Connelly, and Harry M. Woods; first performed by the Ray Noble Orchestra; covered by Otis Redding.)**

This collaboration between a pair of British songwriters and a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith,  [first cut in 1932](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJMFurJxxF8)  and covered by smash crooner Bing Crosby among others, proved durable mostly on account of its title sentiment. But Otis Redding’s cover, with its plain but gorgeous horn opening and its incredible, definitive “got-ta, got-ta, got-ta” climax not only redefined the song, it set a whole new standard in soul singing, and its influence continues to extend into hip-hop, as its use in  [Jay Z](https://www.vanityfair.com/people/jay-z#intcid=dt-hot-link)  and Kanye’s “Otis” aptly testifies.

**16. “Hurt” (Composed by Trent Reznor; first performed by Nine Inch Nails; covered by Johnny Cash.)**

As accomplished as its music and lyrics are, as  [originally sung by Trent Reznor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66GHz-H4k6M), “Hurt” seems, among other things, like a damaged narcissist’s whine. Cash’s version is magisterial, a whole lifetime of pain and regret for damage done behind it. Reznor looks into the abyss; Cash throws himself into it and takes you with him.

**17. “Baltimore” (Composed and first performed by Randy Newman; covered by Nina Simone.)**

The great songwriter Randy Newman owned up in an interview that he’d never spent time in the title town before writing this song; he’d merely gotten some bleak glimpses of it from a train window.  [His original](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TvDge63Iy8)  is as usual a miracle of empathy and craft. Whereas Simone’s rendition sounds like the observation of someone who’s been in Baltimore forever.

**18. “Black Magic Woman” (Composed by Peter Green; first performed by Fleetwood Mac; covered by Santana.)**

As terrific a blues and rock rhythm section as drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie were and are, in 1968 their command of any kind of Latin beat was . . . wanting, and so  [the original of this misterioso tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eANGHVQS9Q)  by then leader Peter Green, his as-usual miraculously fluid guitar work notwithstanding, is a trifle clunky. Carlos Santana’s recasting of the song, conceived as an homage and inspiredly paired with Gábor Szabó’s “Gypsy Woman,” has no such shortcomings, and also cooks like very little on A.M. radio had before, or since. It remained Santana’s biggest chart hit until that song with Rob Thomas, speaking of sacrilege.

**19. “My Favorite Things” (Composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein; first performed by Mary Martin; covered by John Coltrane Quartet.)**

Of course the Great American Songbook has been done more honor by jazz artists than it has by the likes of Barry Manilow, Linda Ronstadt, and Rod Stewart, to name just a few who’ve gone back to that grouping for a career shot in the arm. So why single out  [this tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFxOriWYF9w)? Well, for one thing, when jazz saxophonist John Coltrane cut his version of “My Favorite Things,” that tune wasn’t yet  _in_  the Great American Songbook: it wasn’t even two years old when he recorded it in 1961. Second, the nearly 14-minute track, with McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on double bass, and Elvin Jones on drums, constituted a genuine revolution in music, even more so than that spurred by Coltrane’s onetime bandleader Miles Davis with his 1959  _Kind of Blue._  Maintaining the sunny ebullience of the original cast recording—this is as far as you can get from an ironic cover—it then takes off into another realm of transcendental ebullience. Moving from the modal innovations of Davis’s conception into a form of improvisation heavily influenced by Eastern music, Coltrane and company broke a boundary and set a standard; the ramifications of this beautiful work are still being felt in improvised music today.

**20. “Memories” (Composed by Hugh Hopper; first performed by Soft Machine; covered by Whitney Houston and Material.)**

Coming full circle, here we have new music bassist and conceptualist Bill Laswell, co-producer Michael Beinhorn (later to man the boards for the likes of Soundgarden), and friends, under the collective name Material, covering a tune  [originally sung by Robert Wyatt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wHti_GY1V8), back when he drummed and sang with the ground-breaking psychedelic and jazz then-trio Soft Machine. Their choice for vocalist was a then not-yet-20-year-old up-and-comer named Whitney Houston. She belts the ballad with a prescient confidence, knocking it out of the park; the sax work, from fire-jazz pioneer Archie Shepp, will likely sound rough to some ears, but provides an unusual kind of ballast to the ballad.

## BONUS TRACKS

**21. “Laugh at Me” (Composed by Sonny Bono; first performed by Sonny Bono; covered by Mott the Hoople.)**

Why make you look this up? (See entry for “Needles and Pins.”)  [Sonny Bono wrote this weirdly self-pitying tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI0u0xhNARk)  after being turned away from a Hollywood restaurant for not living up to its dress code or something. “I never thought I’d cut a record by myself, but I’ve got something to say,” goes its questionable spoken-word opening. It’s a pretty weak Dylan rip, but strangely enough, British rockers Mott the Hoople actually gave the song some dignity if not majesty by going Full Dylan with it, complete with Al Kooper–style organ licks.

**22. “Tumbling Dice” (Composed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; first performed by the Rolling Stones; covered by Linda Ronstadt.)**

“That’s my  [favorite Rolling Stones song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U8JlcB_BzA),” my wife said to me the other morning. “If you put the Linda Ronstadt version on your ‘best covers’ list, there’s gonna be trouble.”

“But, honey,” I replied, “according to Robert Christgau, the live version she does of the song on the soundtrack to  _FM_  ‘is so passionate and revelatory that it leaps out of its context and stomps all over the Rolling Stones!’”

You be the judge! Anyway, Keith Richards can’t have completely disapproved, as he later recruited guitarist Waddy Wachtel for his own solo band, the X-Pensive Winos.

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