What Makes a Great Cover Song

Hendrix on May 10, 1968
( Wikimedia Commons/Steve Banks )

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Let's talk cover songs. If you're a regular listener, you might know about the Public Song Project where we're inviting you, yes, you, to send a song to us a song based on work from the public domain, any piece of art in the public domain, music, books, anything published before 1928 is up for grabs and we want to hear our creative listeners make something new out of it. You could cover songs by Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, the Gershwin's, W.C. Handy, Stephen Foster, Mozart, show tunes, blues, folk songs, spirituals. There are a lot of options.

We've been thinking about this project. We've also been wondering what makes a great cover song. For example, while many people really like this version of Proud Mary. [music starts]

left a good job in the city

Working for the man every night and day

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: I got to admit, this one is my favorite.

[music starts]

I left a good job in the city

Working for the man every night and day

And I never lost one minute of sleeping

I was worrying 'bout the way the things might've been.

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: We asked the co-host of the music podcast Switched on Pop, Friends of the Show, Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan to join us to talk about the magic behind great cover songs. We're excited to announce today they'll also be on the panel of judges for our public song project, listening to submissions and picking their favorites. Nate and Charlie, welcome back.

Nate Sloan: Hello. Thank you.

Charlie Harding: Great to be here.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to know about your favorite cover songs, what makes a great cover, who has the best of all time, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC or you can hit us up on social media @allofitwnyc. We are talking about great cover songs. All right, y'all are going to both be judges on the Public Song Project, so we're accepting all kinds of reimaginings and reinterpretations of work from the public domain. One of the options is to just cover a song from the public domain. In general, big picture, let's help out our people who are submitting things. Nate, what are some qualities of a good cover song?

Nate Sloan: I think one of the most important qualities of a cover song is that it is transformative in some way. That it takes the original and reimagines it so you can recognize the melodies, the lyrics, the harmonies, et cetera, but it's been transformed in some way to make you think, "Oh, I never thought of that song that way. I never thought of that meaning or that resonance." I think that's what's so powerful about a great cover.

Alison Stewart: Charlie, what makes a cover work for you?

Charlie Harding: All of what Nate said. Yes, you want to put new arrangements and genre, transmutations, and you want to play with the dynamics of a song. Ultimately, a great cover finds a way of taking words in music and emoting them in a new way so that we feel that song more deeply. It's all about the translation of emotion.

Alison Stewart: You heard the gentleman, listeners, find out more about the Public Song Project at wnyc.org/publicsongproject. Let's dive into your list. We're going to start with one that was produced by recent All Of It guest Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash's Hurt originally by the band Nine Inch Nails. Let's listen to this.

[music starts]

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything

What have I become?

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Had to wait for that part before I come back in. [laughs] Paste Magazine called Hurt the number one cover of all time. The Guardian, Rolling Stone have put it at number two. Nate, why do you think this cover ranked so highly?

Nate Sloan: Your friend Rick did a really good job with this one. Alison, it's pretty remarkable to hear the song which in the original Nine Inch Nails version has drums and electric guitars and synthesizers, and hearing this Johnny Cash cover, it's stripped down to acoustic guitar and his voice is recorded in such a way that you can hear every bit of his life, his experience, his age. When I listen to this cover, and I agree, it's really iconic. It's one of the first ones I think of when I think of famous cover songs.

I think about how it also validates modern music in a way, because here's this legend of American popular music, Johnny Cash singing this song from the '90s by an industrial band like Nine Inch Nails and giving it so much care and reverence. It's like you listen to this cover and you're like, oh, this kind of generational meeting as well between one of the elder statesmen of American music and one of the newer bands and maybe a passing of the torch. I think there's a lot to love about this cover of Hurt.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a little bit of the original just so people can hear how different they are.

[music starts

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle--

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Charlie, when you think about the interpretation that Johnny Cash did, what layer did he add to the song? Because that one is moving and that one is eerie and creepy as well, creepy in the best sense. [laughs]

Charlie Harding: A lot of the drones since come in later that become almost horror soundtracking. I think this is a great example that behind the original is fairly, yes, but it is an example of behind any great song is usually a folk song. Things can be reduced down to a voice and guitar voice and a piano. If those hold together you've got a great song. I think that this demonstrates that aspect of a great composition. It can just be a folk song and maybe we'll talk about some other ones as we go along.

Alison Stewart: Charlie, Jimi Hendrix cover of All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan is another one that tends to make the top of these lists. What did Jimi Hendrix inject into All Along the Watchtower?

Charlie Harding: Thank you for the segue, because I think that's exactly the perfect example. You have Bob Dylan making a, I'll leave it to the Dylan scholars to interpret the medieval meaning of the imagery of this very Shakespearean lyric. His song is just an acoustic guitar mostly. It's got a little bit of arrangement in it, but it's primarily driven by the acoustic guitar, just a handful of chords waffling back and forth, and Hendrix modernizes it and arranges it as if maybe the Dylan was demo and he creates this full arrangement where you have a song that has no chorus.

It's very strange that you have such a successful song with no chorus and he uses it as a vehicle for his solos. There basically are all of these interludes which are Jimi Hendrix just going absolutely wild and changing the dynamics, orchestrating the song in a way that really shows what can be done with this studio. These recordings are just a year apart. Dylan's '67, Hendrix '68, but so much innovation is happening in the studio, and so the multi-tracks and overdubbing the Hendrix is showing that actually behind that folk song you can build it out and give it a whole new life.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear it. All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix.

[music starts]

There must be some kind of way outta here

Said the joker to the thief

There's too much confusion

I can't get no relief

Business men, they drink my wine

Plowmen dig my earth

None will level on the line

Nobody offered his word

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: We're talking about great cover songs with Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan, co-host of Switched On Pop. We're also talking about it with you listeners. Let's talk to Brenda from Parsippany, New Jersey. Hi, Brenda.

Brenda: Hi, how are you, Alison?

Alison Stewart: Doing great, how about you?

Brenda: Fantastic. My song is Killing Me Softly originally by Roberta Flack and then later done by the Fugees.

Alison Stewart: What do you like about it?

Brenda: Well, I loved Roberta Flack.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Brenda: Then really many times it covers when people [unintelligible 00:10:23], it's okay, but they really took it to a different level. I love both versions.

Alison Stewart: Awesome. Thank you so much for calling in. Nate, we go to you. This was on your list, Killing Me Softly with this song by Fugees. First, let's listen to the Roberta Flack version.

[music starts]

Strumming my pain with his fingers

Singing my life with his words

Killing me softly with his song

Telling my whole life with his words

Killing me softly.

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: All right. Now, let's listen to Fugees. We'll do back to back.

[music starts]

This is Wyclef, Refugee Camp (L-Boogie up in here)

Praswell (Praswell up in here, haha)

Lil' Base sittin' up here on the bass (Refugees up in here)

While I'm on this, I got my girl L (ah, ah)

One time (one time), one time (one time)

Ayo, L, you know you got the lyrics

I heard he sang a good song

I heard he had a style

And so I came to see him

And listen for a while.

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Okay, Nate, make your case for Fugees.

Nate Sloan: I totally agree with the caller. I think this is a remarkable cover. Speaking for myself, I remember when this came out, I had no idea that it was a cover of a Roberta Flack song. I just thought this was an incredible performance by Lauryn Hill. I loved hearing this soaring melody over this hip-hop drumbeat and it wasn't until later that I realized that it was a Roberta Flack cover and then I discovered the original and I was so moved by her incredible vocal performance, her rich background harmonies, her Fender Rhodes electric piano. I mean, incredible.

Then I discovered that the Roberta Flack song is a cover of an original by Lori Lieberman, so you can really go down the rabbit hole with Killing Me Softly with his song. It's an incredible testament to the way an original song can be reworked over time and have these different meanings and connect with different people at different points in time. I just think it's an incredible testament to the power of a song to last through the ages.

Alison Stewart: Roberta Flack, my first concert, special place in my Heart for Roberta Flack.

Charlie Harding: Wow, that's very auspicious, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Charlie I want to play you a piece of an interview we had with Suzanne Vega. She was on the show at late last year and I asked about the cover of Tom's Diner that had gone viral on TikTok, it's now more streamed than the original. Here's the track and her reaction to it.

[music starts]

I am sitting in the morning

At the diner on the corner

I am waiting at the counter

For the man to pour the coffee

And he fills it only halfway

And before I even argue

He is looking out the window

At somebody coming in

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doodoo, doo

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, duhdoodoo.

Alison Stewart: Suzanne, what is it like for you when you hear a song that is so identified with you, have its own evolution, take off on its own in that specific version, which is really pretty interesting.

Suzanne Vega: I really like it and I get to approve all of the different versions and I approve I'd say 99% of them. I liked that one. I remember when I approved it which was actually a year or two before it went viral on TikTok. I liked it and I remember how cute they are.

Alison Stewart: I thought that was very funny. It's interesting to hear how artists react to their covers, what can the way an artist react to a cover about their song reveal?

Charlie Harding: Well, a funny mistruth that was just stated there is that, in fact, she doesn't need to approve covers. One of the beautiful things about covers is that anybody has permission to go and get a license to cover anybody else. She does need to approve a sample or an interpolation, which is a little bit different, and that song is one of the most sampled and interpolated and it's all over the place across many genres. I, actually, in many ways don't care too much about what the artist feels about how their song is reinterpreted.

I think one of the great things about music is something that we can have our own relationship to regardless of the artist's intent and so I love this, Suzanne Vega loves it. It's great when there's resonance that, oh, yes, I love what happened, but it's also great when someone says, "I don't really like what you did to my song," because it says, wow, we have so many cultures and so many ways of hearing and interpreting music. I think even when there's disagreement, that can be a healthy disagreement because it's a new way of hearing.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Basel calling in from Williamsburg. Hi, Basel.

Basel: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Basel: My choice is the remake of Eleanor Rigby by Aretha Franklin. I think the first one by The Beatles was great and was fantastic, and it gives you this vision and almost this impressionistic vision of a lonely woman. Aretha Franklin's version just gives you what's happening, the tumult of emotions that's happening inside this lonely woman. I think as a kid, it was the first song that put Aretha Franklin on the chart for me and it still resonates. I love it.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling. Nate, you've got Aretha on your list, Respect.

Nate Sloan: I think I totally agree with Basel. I think you can make the case that Aretha is the queen of the cover song from the track that Basel just mentioned to Respect, which is a cover of an Otis Redding song. She's someone who both takes songs, transforms them, and then really owns them like they're hers, she is a pirate on the musical high seas. Whether it's Eleanor Rigby or Respect, I think what's remarkable about Aretha's covers is that she re styles them in her own sound, her unique mix of gospel and R&B and blues.

With Eleanor Rigby, she transforms this stayed string quartet accompanied ballad into this rousing empowerment anthem. That's the same thing she does with Respect. She takes this song that's about Otis Redding singing how he needs respect from his partner and she turns it into this universal anthem of women's empowerment. That's a rare skill to be able to do that.

Alison Stewart: Well let's hear a little bit of the original Otis Redding.

[music starts]

Hey, what you want?

(Oo) Baby, I got

(Oo) What you need

(Oo) Do you know I got it?

(Oo) All I'm asking

(Oo) Is for a little respect when you come home

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Ms. Aretha.

[music starts]

Hey, what you want

(Oo) Baby, I got

(Oo) What you need

(Oo) Do you know I got it?

(Oo) All I'm asking

(Oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)

Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home

(Just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: We're talking about what makes a great cover song with Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan, co-host of Switched on Pop. Let me see if I can get to some tweets. Debbie says UB40 I Got You Babe, Cat Power New York, New York, Placebo Running Up That Hill, Over Troubled Waters Aretha Franklin. What else do we have? Springsteen's Jersey Girl brings depth to Tom Waits original. Three Dog Night's Joy to the World over the Hoyt Axton's version, as well as Killing Me Softly, a lot of Killing Me Softly.

You know what, Charlie, I wanted to talk about Valerie by Amy Winehouse. I think a lot of people don't realize that's not an original to that point where sometimes an artist takes such control of a song that it feels like it's theirs. Tell us a little bit about the original.

Charlie Harding: This is very akin to like the Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix Pipeline where in 2006 a band called The Zutons who are a bluesy rock indie group put out an album called Tired of Hanging Around and on it is this track Valerie and it's fun. It is a upbeat, really exciting, lots of great syncopation, really fun song, it sounds very of its time, the sort of what's happening in Indian blues-rock around 2006.

Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse hanging out in 2006, they had worked together and put out her record Back in Black. He follows up that record with an album called Version where he is covering lots of other, both old and new songs, and he says, "Amy, let's do a song together." They'd originally done a slow version of Valerie as a bonus disc, as a live track they had recorded, BBC. It was slow. It was a good song, but they take The Zutons' version and her slow version and totally turn it around into-- her style is like a Motown hit, they give it a Bo Diddley 3-2 clave beat and make the most fun upbeat version of the song within an amazing orchestration. It has become the definitive recording of Valerie.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's listen to The Zutons' version first.

[music starts]

Well, sometimes I go out by myself

And I look across the water

And I think of all the things, what you do

And in my head, I make a picture

'Cause since I've come on home

Well, my body's been a mess

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Let's hear Amy Winehouse.

[music starts]

Well, sometimes I go out by myself

And I look across the water

And I think of all the things, what you do

And in my head, I make a picture

[music ends]

Alison Stewart: Like I say though, I'm not mad at That Zutons' version. Not at all.

Charlie Harding: No, it's great.

Alison Stewart: It's really good as well.

Charlie Harding: It's so good.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to-

Charlie Harding: Amy's [unintelligible 00:21:57]

Alison Stewart: Yes, Amy's. Let's talk to Hari from West Orange. Hi,, Hari.

Hari: Hi. How are you? Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you're on the air.

Hari: Oh, great. Yes, so I wanted to point out I Will Survive by Cake. Everybody knows the Gloria Gaynor version which is awesome, but the Cake version's really great because it really turned a song that was mostly pop and a dance song into more of like a funk-groove which I loved as a kid growing up when I first started listening to them. That was my pick.

Alison Stewart: I like it, Hari. Thank you so much. Nina from Greenpoint, line six. Hey, Nina. Go for it.

Nina: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Nina: Yes, I like the Fleetwood Mac Gypsy cover by Tigers Jaw-

Alison Stewart: Thanks.

Nina: -because it just tonally-- oh-

Alison Stewart: No, it's-

Nina: -shall I go on?

Alison Stewart: No. You know what, I actually need to cut you off on that one because we're running out of time and I want to make sure I ask one more question to Nate and Charlie. Okay, cover fail. A cover fail. Someone who-- it just whoof, maybe they whoof-whoof, shouldn't have done that.

Charlie Harding: A big one right now is there's a trend that we've reported on Switched on Pop about the rise of interpolations. Taking old songs and making them new. There's a song called Bang Bang by Rita Ora and Imanbek which covers Axel F the theme song to Beverly Hills Cop, and it's just kind of a pastiche and very goofy. It's not for me.

Alison Stewart: All right, Nate, what's a cover fail?

Nate Sloan: I'm going to have to say Britney Spears' cover of the Rolling Stone's Satisfaction. This, for me, is a cover that takes the song which originally was so full of angst and neurosis and turns it into this saccharine ballad. Now, I want to immediately say that and then offer a caveat, which is that I gave that as my answer, but then I was re-listening to it and I was like, there is something poignant about listening to this song knowing everything Britney Spears has been through. Maybe I didn't give her enough credit. I think the meaning of a cover will constantly change the more we listen to it. Yes, that comes to mind as an unsuccessful cover.

Alison Stewart: Then you'd also listen to Richard Thompson's version of Oops! I Did It Again.

Nate Sloan: There you go. Full circle.

Alison Stewart: My guests have been Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding. They are the co-hosts of Switched on Pop. If that conversation inspired you to cover a song yourself, join the Public Song Project. Record your own version of a song that's in the public domain, wnyc.org/publicsongproject. We can't wait to hear from you. Nick and Charlie, thanks for agreeing to be part of our judging panel.

Charlie Harding: Thank you so much.

Nate Sloan: It was so much fun. Thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: There's more All of It on the way.

[music]

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