Oh, I just don't know about cover songs. When I was a kid, cover songs introduced me to songs that I didn't know and then I went on to discover the original versions. Now that I'm thirty, current groups are covering songs of my youth and annoying me. I just need to remember the fact that the kids today will enjoy the same benefits of cover songs that I did and learn to turn off the unfortunate modern versions if they suck.
Before I go on, I have to say that I was taught that there are covers and there are remakes. I learned this in the fabulous Ms. Yolanda's class so as far as I am concerned this is not a suggestion, it's a rule. In my notes from that class dated 02/04/99 a cover is redoing a song and a remake is altering or updating the song. Going by that rule, the Poison version of Rock And Roll All Nite is a cover and the Toad The Wet Sprocket version is a remake.
Poison recorded that song for the Less Than Zero soundtrack and it is true to the original. Toad The Wet Sprocket recorded it for the Kiss My Ass tribute album and they made it acoustic and changed the time signature. Therefore, it's a remake. Since the terms are often used interchangeably, over the years I have switched to saying cover or straight cover. I use straight cover when I mean true to the original and cover for anything with alterations. In fact, it's been so long since I used the two terms I had to look up my notes to keep cover and remake straight.
Today I'm going to break the rule for convenience purposes and use cover as a blanket term. Even though I can't stand the covers of today, they helped me out very much as a youth. Off the top of my head, these are the songs that I discovered via covers.
Can't Help Falling In Love
Stairway To Heaven
Helter Skelter
I'm Eighteen
Higher Ground
Fire
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Got The Time
Cat's In The Cradle
There are many more, but these are the ones I wrote down on a yellow adhesive note at work a few weeks ago. I stuck it to my monitor and chucked it after three weeks. The adhesive crapped out on me so I never had the chance to tote it home and write an item. Luckily, I had emailed part of this list to CEB to see if he had any covers to contribute. He provided me with five or six groups I had never heard of doing songs I had never heard. Helpful!
Anyway, the list here is in chronological order which is good because I'm sure there are many people who are dying to know who had the great idea to cover Stairway To Heaven. But first, Corey Hart and Can't Help Falling In Love. When I got my first radio the Corey Hart era was waning, I had missed the Sunglasses At Night craze so I got Corey covering Elvis Presley. Thank you, Top 40 station.
Seriously, since I liked that song so well I ended up enjoying an Elvis movie week (well, most of it, I'm still mad that I forgot to watch King Creole that Friday in 1986) and discovered Blue Hawaii. That is my favorite Elvis movie and has been since I saw it and sometimes I wonder if it's because of Corey Hart. Since Can't Help Falling In Love is in that movie it was already familiar so I enjoyed the movie right away. And let me tell you, Corey Hart did a fine job of the song but anything Corey Hart can do, Elvis has already done better.
At the same time that song was big, a group called The Far Corporation had a version of Stairway To Heaven on my Top 40 countdown. I remember the day I went and told my dad about this great Far Corporation song called Stairway To Heaven. He smiled so pleasantly and informed me they had re-recorded a Led Zeppelin tune. Oh, okay. That meant nothing to me, I was not raised in a Led Zeppelin household. My dad likes Led Zeppelin about as much as I do. About a month or two ago my dad said, "They peaked musically and cover art-wise at Led Zeppelin II. It was all downhill after that." My dad is cool.
Helter Skelter I had to learn from Mötley Crüe because I grew up in an Abbey Road household. Early smash hits when they still wore matching suits and Abbey Road were the Beatles of my childhood home. That is also the case in the home I currently have. I've partially rounded out the collection over time, but there are noticeable gaps in the Beatles section of my LPs. No albums that feature facial hair are present at all, mostly because they are too expensive.
Know what? I think I have to pick this up tomorrow or the next day. I can't help but notice that it's 11:45 in the evening and I have to get up at 5:45 because I'm working a little overtime this week and I was tired all day today and had itchy contacts. In the meantime, you can wonder how I got to age sixteen without knowing the song Fire.