by S. Graveson

Created on: March 24, 2009

I've recently decided to listen to more and more cover songs, some are really good, some are really bad, but the most important things it would see are the artist doing the cover, and the original song. They could be all time classics, or modern greats; the song is a key. It has to stand up to being played with and re-performed, you can't imagine some songs ever matching the original; for example, "Imagine" by John Lennon will probably never be equalled. The artist doing the cover is equally important, if you've for example heard Disturbed's cover of the Faith No More track "Midlife Crisis" you'd realise some bands should never try certain songs. A song that relied so heavily on Mike Patton's unique voice just wasn't ever going to be properly replicated.

The best songs to cover, oddly seem to stand out as well as those artists who do a lot of covers, for example Leonard Cohen's track "Hallelujah" is one of the most covered songs of recent times. Artists as opposite as John Cale and Alexander Burke have done renditions of it to varying standards. Similarly "House of the Rising sun", "Feeling Good" and "How Soon is Now?" seem to be regularly covered either as releases of as B-Sides. In some cases the original is almost forgotten by the public.

Did you know "I Did it My Way", the song most of you have now associated with Frank Sinatra, was actually written in English by Paul Anka originally, after being known as "Comme d'habitude" in France and released by Claude Franois and Jacques Revaux, with lyrics written by Claude Franois and Gilles Thibaut. Anka admittedly changed the lyrics entirely, but the musical composition remained pretty much untouched. Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" is often forgotten in modern days as the Metallica version has seemingly blown it away with its heavier, more angry sound. Though Seger is remembered for the original, it's almost like the original is no longer seen as the supreme rendition. A song the great Nina Simone is often credited with in "Feeling Good" was actually first performed by Gilbert Price, John Coltrane followed with his rendition before Simone made the song her own. So here is another key to a great cover, make the song yours, do anything you can to stand out from the previous performers of the track.

Some great artists make careers out of doing real covers, Jeff Buckley's early work is littered with it. The live EP Live at Sin- is 4 tracks long, yet has 2 classical and immortal covers in "The Way Young Lovers Do", which

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