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    Towards a unified theory of why it’s nearly impossible to cover Beatles’ songs

    I still keep wondering why even pretty good bands so reliably founder on Beatles' covers.

    Maybe it's as simple as this:

    1. Because of their experiences in Germany, the Beatles were one of the best live bands in rock history,
    2. When added to the complexity of their melodies this sets a very high bar for covers,
    3. George Martin's production then adds a feeling of canonicity to their specific performances.

    So then when you cover the song it usually sounds like just a bad copy or something different but not as good.

     

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    18 responses to “Towards a unified theory of why it’s nearly impossible to cover Beatles’ songs”

    1. Steven Levine Avatar
      Steven Levine

      What about Bowie’s Across the Universe? Almost better than the original.

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    2. David Merli Avatar
      David Merli

      (1) is both suspicious and irrelevant, I think. First, c’mon, no other band had that kind of club experience? That’s a pretty common formative-years thing. Second, how does that make songs uncoverable? This thought can be explicated differently for the performance and post-performance eras; proof left to the reader.
      I think (3) is the most important factor.

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    3. Anon Avatar
      Anon

      Their iconic cultural status makes their songs into sacred objects, maybe making it hard to fairly judge covers of their songs. If they’re identical, they’re bad. But if they diverge at all, it’s blasphemy.
      However, I think the Pixies and their spinoff The Breeders do some great Beatles covers:
      Pixies, Honey Pie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyVsg4nwJn0
      Breeders, Happiness is a Warm Gun:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8K0yLAtzCY

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    4. James Camien McGuiggan Avatar
      James Camien McGuiggan

      I didn’t believe that there aren’t any good Beatles covers, so I went hunting. So far no luck, even on songs I would’ve thought relatively cover-able. I don’t suppose this post could lead to some sharing of decent Beatles covers?

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    5. James Camien McGuiggan Avatar
      James Camien McGuiggan

      Let me start off with Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Blackbird’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37DHXrFfwrE ;
      St Vincent’s ‘Dig a Pony’: http://www.covermesongs.com/MP3s/FullAlbums/LetItBe/DigAPony.mp3 ;
      and the Aaron English Band’s ‘Norwegian Wood’ (which becomes Led Zep’s ‘Kashmir’) (mainly because it’s so weird): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1e_0cF6whM#t=204.

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    6. Paul Avatar
      Paul

      I don’t know if the reasons you provided are true, but…on the main, it is true: The Beatles are incredibly difficult to cover:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOH8KP2KZJs

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    7. Christy Mag Uidhir Avatar
      Christy Mag Uidhir

      Jon, you’re working with a pretty narrow and impoverished (if not a bit backward) notion of what cover songs are and what makes them good as such. If you’re interested in reading some philosophical work on the issue, I think you’d enjoy having a gander at the 2013 article I co-authored with PD & Cristyn Magnus, “Judging Covers” in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 (4):361-370.

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    8. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      Oh man, this looks fantastic! We’re lightyears beyond Goodmania now. I’m really hyped about the paper and think through some examples that seem to me to succeed and fail.

      For anyone else interested the article is at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jaac.12034/abstract (if your institution doesn’t cover it, I’m pretty sure that Christy will e-mail you an earlier version). Here’s the abstract:

      Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation that are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the very possibility of transformative and referential covers, we argue that a cover is characterized by relation to a canonical track rather than merely by being a new instance of a song that had been recorded previously.

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    9. b Avatar
      b

      Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Dear Prudence” is a fantastic rendition.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rrTROoZIw
      Robert Smith of the Cure is in this one.

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    10. marcegoodman Avatar
      marcegoodman

      Here’s a few off the top of my head. I won’t make the case that they’re “as good” or better, only new ways to hear familiar songs or just to remind you how extraordinary those songs were in the first place. Even “mimic” covers can do this simply by virtue of being sung in different voices.
      Herb Pederson – “Paperback Writer”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY0mJIfzwHo
      801 – “Tomorrow Never Knows”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkGXUn0Kuuw
      Allsion Krauss – “I Will”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3989jHX3sMQ
      Aimee Mann and Michael Penn – “Two of Us”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhd0s6L19w8
      Harry Nilsson – “Mother Nature’s Son”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5CyqSrOlcg

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    11. Christy Mag Uidhir Avatar
      Christy Mag Uidhir

      We just celebrated August as Covers Month at Aesthetics for Birds:
      http://www.aestheticsforbirds.com/2014/08/august-is-covers-month-at-afb.html
      I also held a philosophy contest in which people submitted their 50 or fewer word answers to the following question: Can a band be its own cover band?
      The winners were just announced a few days ago. You can see the winning entries here:
      http://www.aestheticsforbirds.com/2014/09/afb-covers-contest-winners.html

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    12. Aaron Bady Avatar
      Aaron Bady

      Bill Frisell’s John Lennon covers are pretty first rate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9a87Q3w7Ds

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    13. Jim Avatar
      Jim

      Nina Simone’s “Here Comes the Sun” is classic.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr8ol8ufSRg

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    14. Dave Avatar
      Dave

      Surely we can all agree that The Flamin’ Groovies cover of Misery (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u18SrLYE8Y) trounces the original?

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    15. Joe Berendzen Avatar
      Joe Berendzen

      I assume you included the Sgt. Pepper’s trailer to show examples of bad Beatles covers, but IMO the Earth, Wind & Fire version of “Got to Get You into My Life” is fantastic. To be honest, though, I would much rather listen to Earth, Wind & Fire than the Beatles in general…

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    16. bzfgt Avatar
      bzfgt

      I can’t find their studio version of “I’ve Just Seen A Face,” which is my favorite, but in general the album Beatle Country by the Charles River Boys (including the great Joe Val) is pretty darn good!

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    17. ben w Avatar
      ben w

      Most of the covers on Laibach’s Let It Be aren’t that great, but their version of “Across the Universe” is, in fact, superior to the Beatles song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lxmHHNNm_E
      (I’m also fond of their “I Me Mine”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfUwIFQR2rI)
      And, I mean, I can’t be the only one to think that this is pretty damn good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y

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    18. P.D. Magnus Avatar
      P.D. Magnus

      Jon: Thanks for the kind words about our paper. Whatever other merits our discussion might have, I think that it’s helpful to have labels for some of the distinctions — e.g., between mimic covers and renditions.
      For anyone without access to the journal, the authors’ final draft is available from my website:
      http://www.fecundity.com/job/paper.php?item=coversongs

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