#948. Lineage of Song: “Killing Me Softly”

Don McLean

Lori Lieberman

Roberta Flack

Fugees

When the Fugees exploded on the scene, it was because they settled into music appreciation like few others. That’s the kind of act I appreciate, in any medium.

#947. Lineage of Song: “99 Problems”

Jay-Z

Hugo 

Here’s one of my favorites, actually, not necessarily the original but the remake, which was featured in the credits for another remake, the 2011 version of Fright Night. 

It’s worth noting Hugo was actually recruited by Jay-Z to his label, and that’s how his cover happened. Also, the most infamous version of “99 Problems” is on The Grey Album, the Danger Mouse mashup of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album. Due to legal issues the whole project is tantamount to urban legend, so I haven’t really pursued it, much less heard any of it until after posting this, when it occurred to me to see if YouTube could help. But it turns out as far as this particular track is concerned, it’s almost exactly the Jay-Z version with minor injections of “Helter Skelter.” Which makes me less interested in experiencing the whole album.

#946. Lineage of Song: “Every Breath You Take”

 

The Police

Sean Combs

I include this one because the famous guitar riff running through it was included in the recently disgraced Combs’ tribute to his late friend Notorious B.I.G. (there’s surprisingly a whole recent history of new songs doing that, borrowing wholesale elements from other songs, like Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” or Train’s “Play That Song”). 

Actually I once again confess that part of this project is shamelessly only to spur me into to watching the results after posting, and doing so led me to revisiting Diddy’s song for the first time since its original release, which revealed that the backing vocals are themselves a riff on the Police song, so it also operates as a cover.

#945. Lineage of Song: “Walk This Way”

 

Aerosmith

Run DMC

This one’s here because it’s such an iconic moment of its time but kind of gets lost in the shuffle. It elevated both acts and foreshadowed what both genres needed to do to push forward. Arguably one of the most important songs in American pop history as a result.

#944. Lineage of Song: “I Shot the Sheriff”

 

Bob Marley

Eric Clapton

The legend as to why this one happened is that Eric Clapton thought Bob Marley deserved more exposure. He did, and he did!

#943. Lineage of Song: “She Said She Said”

Beatles

 

Mark Mulcahy

This one’s really interesting. Mojo, one of those music magazines that attaches CDs to the cover, underwent a whole project of compiling Beatles cover albums for their most famous releases about a fifteen years back. Since I never subscribed to Mojo it was a constant treasure hunt checking the shelves for a new release. “She Said She Said” is from Revolver, and the Mark Mulcahy cover is how I fell in love with the song (the whole cover album is great), since it’s otherwise one of the more obscure Beatles tracks.

I don’t know, and since internet coverage is sadly never really complete it’s been tough trying to verify over the years, if I got the whole collection (as far as I could tell there was only one other, from just before I first saw the project’s results), so here’s the albums Mojo covered: Revolver (as Revolver Reloaded), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (since most of my collection is in binders and the disc itself isn’t labeled I don’t have titles for this or the next one), Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album (as No. 0000001 and No. 0000002), Abbey Road (as Abbey Road Now!), and Let It Be (as Let It Be Revisited).

#942. Lineage of Song: “Viva la Vida”

 

Coldplay

Weezer

“Viva la Vida,” full of strings and chiming bells, gave new dimensions to Coldplay, and was embraced as a major new addition to rock lore, which led to a cover version by Weezer included as a bonus track on its Hurley album just a few years after its release. (And yes, Weezer named its album after the character from Lost, which is why he appears on the cover.)