Covers that are better than the originals... or just covers

Not better than the original, but a strong cover nonetheless — Dave Ellefson, Russell Allen, and others covering Dokken’s “Tooth And Nail”:

 

Not familiar with My Darkest Days, but this is a killer cover of Duran Duran's Come Undone. I absolutely love the original and this is a great take, I like the way they've made the chorus heavier to contrast with the calmer verse.
 
Not a cover exactly but I love this german reworking by Dartagnan of The Parting Glass:
This 1985 recording by The Pogues is not the original (the song is literally "older than Auld Lang Syne") but is a fairly straight rendition of the "traditional" version of the song:
 
Diesel 11 said:
Didn’t play the song you linked but out of curiosity I checked out a couple of their other tracks. I’m pretty impressed, gonna have to note them down for further inspection later.
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Cool :ok:

Dartagnan have now officially become my second favourite band (bumping Alestorm down to third :D). I've got all four of their albums now and there's literally no filler on them anywhere - amazing :blink:
 

This slays the original. I really dislike RATM's vocalist, not because it's rapping per se, his voice just annoys me. This is way better.
 
Niall Kielt said:
My favourite version of The Parting Glass is probably by Freddie White
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It's certainly a song that gets "covered" a lot, but what I really love here is that the different versions cover such a broad spectrum of styles and different takes on the lyrics.

This song is a bit ambiguous in that, although the subject is obviously an imminent parting, it is not clear if a death is expected or merely a long separation because someone is about to embark on a long journey. It has also been sugested that the departing party may be going into a war, which kind of covers both these possibilities and seems quite plausible. But I have a suspicion that what we have here is actually two similar songs from much earlier which have become combined at some point in antiquity.

Mr White's interpretation here seem to point more towards a permanent parting of some kind (as does Dartagnan's) - there's a finality implied that is quite reminiscent of the Johnny Cash version of Hurt. The versions by The Pogues' and Patty Gurdy (for example) don't sound nearly so ominous. Discussion on Mudcat suggests that many people are locked in an endless quest to find the "true" meanings of traditional songs (as on this board about Maiden songs) but I'm beginning to think that the best sorts of songs may be the ones which are open to several different interpretations so that people find their own meanings in them. Because this means that more people will find relevance in these songs and so will keep singing them and adding their own interpretations, long after everyone has forgotten what the song was originally about. And contrary to what some purists would have us believe, far from the new or different versions being sacrilegious every new interpretation adds to the tradition and makes it richer - a song which never dies because people want to keep on singing it eventually becomes "traditional". The whole point of folk music is that anyone can write it and anyone can sing it - and with continued relevance comes longevity.

That's why I love all these really old songs.
 
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