#977. Lineage of Song: "Desolation Row"

 

Bob Dylan

My Chemical Romance

My Chemical Romance doesn’t get nearly enough love, being a latter day rock band (seriously, The Black Parade is great). Gerard Way also made a great career for himself in comics.

#976. Lineage of Song: “Wild Wild West”

 

Stevie Wonder, “I Wish”

Will Smith

When Will Smith’s movie career exploded, initially he kept his rap career going steady right beside it, this time as a solo artist (he was originally the Fresh Prince alongside Jazzy Jeff). The success of Men in Black in particular led to Wild Wild West, a movie that proved there were limits to his appeal. But the song was still good!

#975. Lineage of Song: “People Are Strange”

 

The Doors

The Dead South

This one’s here strictly to showcase how awesome the Dead South is. Obviously the Doors. Both. It’s a great one-two punch.

#974. Lineage of Song: “You Are My Sunshine”

 

Pine Ridge Boys

Gene Autry

Bing Crosby 

Doris Day

Ray Charles

Johnny Cash

The Dead South

Here’s a little old school. 

#973. Lineage of Song: “Thunderstruck”

 

AC/DC

2Cellos

This one’s just one of the fun ones. Instrumental covers, especially ones outside of the box, will always be worth it.

#972. Lineage of Song: “Raspberry Beret”

 

Prince

Warren Zevon

Here’s another I can’t believe I didn’t include earlier. I became a hopelessly devoted fan of Warren Zevon very, very late in his career, when David Letterman invited him on in his last days. But I guess in my family I was the only one to listen to “Werewolves of London” as a kid and remember it fondly. It was a classic for me, no idea when or how I originally heard it. Still can’t believe the rest of the world hasn’t caught up with his genius.

#971. Lineage of Song: “Piece of My Heart”

 

Janis Joplin

Melissa Etheridge

Here’s another I hesitated to share in the early period of this thing, even though I love it. Again, I have no particular interest in Joplin, and I was genuinely confused that Etheridge didn’t emerge from her version a bigger star. In fact the opposite seemed to happen. But by that point a lot of cultural observers seemed intent to downplay anything that could compete, at the very least, with earlier memories. Which I don’t get. In the longterm you hurt all of it. Later generations (now) are robbed of the lineage. It’s kind of why we currently have a much less rich and celebrated music scene now. You can’t stand out if your predecessors were downplayed. You can’t build on a foundation somebody removed. I get that some of this is jealousy, that so many of the icons of yesteryear died young, that they never had a chance to take victory laps. And maybe in a lot of minds that actually somehow became preferable, since we now have the tendency to punish longevity. Doesn’t make it any less screwed up.

#970. Lineage of Song: “Landslide”

 

Fleetwood Mac

Dixie Chicks

Here’s another song I lost resisted including, even though it was a personal favorite. I didn’t grow up with much awareness of Fleetwood Mac, so I had no particular reason to have affection for the original version of “Landslide.” When the Chicks came out with theirs, I just knew I loved it. Then they had to go and sacrifice their popular career on the altar of political approval. Well.

#969. Lineage of Song: “This Land Is Your Land”

 

“When the World’s On Fire,” Carter Family

Woody Guthrie 

Bing Crosby

Bruce Springsteen

Obviously still on my A Complete Unknown high, I came up with this post, this is the song Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger pretends to sing innocently (and here I really am just realizing the subversiveness about Bob Dylan Seeger eventually completely forgets is in the spirit of what Seeger himself is doing at the start of the movie and in the spirit of the man who wrote this song, and the song itself, differentiated mostly because Dylan is fighting to be himself).

“This Land Is Your Land” is probably Woody Guthrie’s most successful song. It sounds plainly patriotic in the chorus, but when you get into the meat of it (it’s not as clear cut as Springsteen’s later “Born in the U.S.A.”) you realize Guthrie is protesting private despoiling of the country’s natural bounties (specifically when he reaches a fence). Guthrie became an icon best known by reputation and name rather than his bountiful output, so it certainly needs reminding that he really does have an iconic song to his credit. If there’s a failing to Complete Unknown, it’s that it doesn’t make it explicit that Seeger is using the song in a roundabout ironic fashion. Really, it’s the lynchpin to the whole movie. Once you see it you realize the depth of it. It’s one thing to see Dylan visiting Guthrie at the clinic repeatedly, another to realize that it becomes symbolic of the private lives they’re leading. Anyway, that title has a lot of context.

#968. Lineage of Song: “Turn, Turn, Turn”

 

Pete Seeger

The Byrds

Ah, so this is definitely one I composed in the aftermath of A Complete Unknown, where Seeger is played by Edward Norton, who has been able to settle into doing exactly what he wants after very uncomfortably existing in the early parts of his career in the mainstream. His starring role in The Incredible Hulk, the second entry in the MCU, was the definitive tipping point. He became known as “difficult to work with,” mostly stemming from taking over the production of his masterpiece, American History X. Seeger, meanwhile, seems to have been the last of the true believers in the folk music scene, the bridge between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. That aspect of Unknown is alone worth savoring, how Dylan navigates his early career, clearly enthralled with the dying Guthrie while forging ahead with Seeger, Joan Baez, rejecting their attempts to pigeonhole him, theirs and fans. Music as we know it would be poorer had he agreed. His legacy will continue to evolve over the coming decades. I’m currently working my way into a country act named Colter Wall, who sounds like a young version of the older Johnny Cash. He keeps denying it, but it’s absolutely there. His music seems to have been unearthed, like he’s tapping what Cash was always trying to mine. Bob Dylan is and was a more complete phenomenon than Cash. Just imagine the Bob Dylan version of Colter Wall. It’s going to happen. Wall plays in obscurity. He’s another Canadian act tapping into traditional American sounds, like the Dead South. Maybe the Bob will emerge from that, too. Or just show up in the anonymous music circuits most of us will never experience. Radio doesn’t look for these acts, and the expanse of the internet hides everything it finds. Such is what we have to navigate.

#967. Lineage of Song: “Forever Young”

Bob Dylan

Rod Stewart

Joan Baez

Here’s Bob again. It’s somehow still easy to take him for granted. It shouldn’t. The Rod Stewart version was apparently conceived as its own song, although there’s a ton of overlap. I never really got Rod Stewart as an artist. I kind of find him, David Bowie, Elton John, all of them to be careers that happened because they were willing to challenge expectations based on how they looked, outright displays of defiance that worked. We’re gonna sing in a traditional fashion but not look traditional, so our flamboyance is gonna cover the difference. Anyway.

#966. Lineage of Song: “Superman”

 

The Clique

R.E.M.

I’ve been at this project for about a year at the point I’m writing this (though it’ll be well into early 2025, and thus comfortably past a year of posts, by the time it’s published), and remarkably, whether new entries simply occur to me or I stumble on new material, the plot moves ever onward. This one’s the latter, since until reading about it a few moments ago I had no idea R.E.M.’s “Superman” was a cover.

#965. Lineage of Song: “Cruel Summer”

 

Bananarama

Ace of Base

Taylor Swift

I was/am a big fan of Ace of Base. “Cruel Summer” was, I think, the last time they had a hit song. I didn’t particularly care that it was a cover. Taylor Swift’s song is unrelated, but it shares the title, so here it is. It’s the song the radio station I listen to on Sunday mornings is most likely to play from her catalog.

#964. Lineage of Song: “Once in a Lifetime”

Talking Heads

Kermit the Frog

Muppets Tonight was a short-lived but fine addition to the Muppets canon. It gave unexpected pleasures like this random complete cover, and it also introduced Pepe the Prawn (okay?), who stands, to date, as the last breakout creation of the crew. If you’ve never seen it, my personal recommendation is the Jason Alexander episode. Alexander will always be best known as George on Seinfeld, but he’s surprisingly versatile when given the opportunity. Among the later sitcoms he tried to launch, my favorite was Listen Up, which ran for a single season in 2004/2005. The last episode feels like you’re watching a stage production. It’s Alexander stripped down to his most relaxed state, the total opposite of George Costanza. In the Muppets Tonight episode, the whole point of every sketch is him trying to avoid the famous histrionics, with the best one being him playing Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective (as recently portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in a rewarding series of films). All the Muppets keep calling him “Hercules.” He keeps setting them straight. They keep calling him Hercules. It ends with him ranting about the end of Superman (1978), the implausibility of the time travel gimmick…

Watching the actual Talking Heads video, listening to the song through that lens, it feels like a later generation’s conception of Buddy Holly (see also: Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” the video for which features the Fonz). But Buddy Holly was never a geek, to his fans. He was idolized by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. He was a pillar in the birth of rock. It probably doesn’t help that while a good experience for fans, Gary Busey’s portrayal in The Buddy Holly Story leaves the geek impression very much in mind.
 

#963. Lineage of Song: “Heart and Soul”

 

Train, “Play That Song”

From Lost

When I originally tackled this project, Train’s contribution was actually the kind of song I didn’t really want to include. I first heard Train as a gloomy band my college roommate loved. Later in their career they discovered that they could sound pretty cheerful, and I guess that’s also why they later did “Play That Song,” or so I always assumed, because it wasn’t that easy for them to keep the new version of themselves going, especially as radio hitmakers. “Heart and Soul” itself is a classic bit of piano material that a lot of people learning how to play like to pick out on the keys. I loved when Lost had it show up with Jack’s doomed love in the flashbacks, who was played by Julie Bowen, whom I’d fallen in love with previously thanks to Ed, and before she found lasting success in Modern Family.

#962. Lineage of Song: “Thank You”

 

“Stan”

“Thank You”

Back in the day there was the belief that Dido’s “Thank You” was better off being sampled in Eminem’s “Stan” than existing on its own. I tend to wildly disagree. But it’s still interesting, that Eminem took a whole existing, until that point unknown contemporary song and used it as supporting material in his own, which ended up propelling not only the song but the artist into the mainstream. Sometimes rap shenanigans work as a force for good!

#961. Lineage of Song: “Monsters”

 

James Blunt

Iam Tongi

I don’t usually feature reality show singing competitions in this, but I was touring YouTube and just came across Iam Tongi, whose version of James Blunt’s song in his audition is truly one of those perfect moments.

#960. Lineage of Song: “Captain Kidd”

“What Wondrous Love is This”

Johnny Cash, “Sam Hall”

 

Great Big Sea, “Captain Kidd”

“The Ballad of Captain Ashford”

“Captain Kidd” is actually quoted in a Washington Irving story, so its lineage is pretty well established, and its tune ended up showing up in other songs like “What Wondrous Love is This” and “Sam Hall.” It’s of course a song I first heard from Newfoundland fount of traditional songs Great Big Sea (one of its original members left because he thought they didn’t devote sufficient time to preserving them). In more recent days it was adapted by the TV show The Expanse as “The Ballad of Captain Ashford.” It’s a well-travelled sea shanty indeed.

#959. Lineage of Song: “Gallows Pole”

 

Led Zeppelin

Great Big Sea

My brothers took a sharp turn toward classic rock in the ‘90s, thanks in part to a local radio station (The Blimp!), during which they embraced Led Zeppelin as one of the great bands, a sentiment widely shared since their heyday but one I’ve never really gotten around to myself. My Newfoundland boys Great Big Sea (they’ll continue to show up in this, I assure you) covered the most appropriate song in the catalog, and that got me listening, but I would still need slightly more than a stairway to join the bandwagon.

#958. Lineage of Song: “The Long and Winding Road”

 

On a Beatles kick, here’s a song that I’ve been getting into more and more since the Let It Be…Naked version without the added production was released, and the subsequent take from Yesterday following it so faithfully. I hated how critics tried to bury the movie by suggesting younger viewers couldn’t possibly understand it when that was kind of the whole point, that you could discover this music all over again and it would be just as amazing. I was born a decade after the band split, so my whole life has been exploring it after the fact. If you believe it’s impossible it’s because you need it to be true. But it certainly doesn’t have to be.

#957. Lineage of Song: “I’ve Just Seen a Face”

Across the Universe

 

Having just posted the previous Beatles cover song responsible for helping me discover more of their work, I figured I should definitely include this one, too, from what I still consider to be a horribly underrated movie bursting with such material.

(This is yet another post breaking the fourth wall of the humorously disjointed nature of plotting blog posts in advance! Huzzah!)

#956. Lineage of Song: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”

 

Bob Dylan

Guns ‘n’ Roses

This one’s here because at work it happened to come up, when I was playing Bon Jovi, and I was asked if it was the same band that played “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” No, no it was not.

Back when I created this post (10/26), it seemed like it was a long time to wait to see it finally posted. I’m currently sitting at #1007 now waiting, which is a whole additional year of this project. When I started it I was just trying to find something new for an old blog to be revitalized, since my slowdown at blogging had ended up sacrificing my oldest, least structured blog, and that felt wrong. 

Anyway, since composing this particular post, I picked up a Criterion Collection edition of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which led to hours spent watching three different cuts. I’d never seen it before, so spending so much time with it ended up being a pleasant surprise (I posted a review about a month back on my film blog).

Between this and the release of A Complete Unknown (which I decided was my favorite movie of 2024), I found myself once again in the grip of Bob Dylan. It’s been a comfortable spot for a dozen years or so. I understand I came late to the party, but I figure it’s not really when you arrive but that you found the time to enjoy it.

#955. Lineage of Song: “Johnny B. Goode”

 

Back to the Future

Michael J. Fox & Coldplay

It’s kind of hard to work on a project like this and not acknowledge one of the biggest moments in one of the most beloved movies of the past fifty years. Later, Coldplay helped Michael J. Fox recreate the magic.

#954. Lineage of Song: “Peggy Sue”

 

Pealing back the curtain a bit, because the timing won’t at all bear this out. I’ve been compiling these well in advance of posting them. For me, yesterday was 9/7, which 88 years earlier was when Buddy Holly was born.

And while it was a few months ago for me, setting up “Cecilia,” the posted version was a few weeks ago. That one features two different music acts in collaboration. This one is Buddy Holly writing a sequel to his own song (a few minutes ago I posted “That’s All Right, Mama” vaguely referencing a different “follow up;” sometimes I’m very cavalier in these posts). 

I had a mentor when I was a kid who inadvertently encouraged getting into Buddy Holly, which I took for a lifelong commitment, but “Peggy Sue Got Married” (despite eventually inspiring a whole movie) wasn’t really a part of that experience, since it’s absent from the greatest hits collection I took most of my experience with his music from, so it’s surreal to listen to it, now, to think Holly somehow wrote a coda to a life cut far too short. I can probably do some research, but apart from these examples I’m not aware of a ton of outright sequel songs. 

#953. Lineage of Song “Wellerman”

The Longest Johns

Nathan Evans 

The Albany Shantymen

Wellington Sea Chanty Society

Kind of crazy that it took me this long to include “Wellerman” in the Lineage of Song, since it’s basically the song, as sung by Nathan Evans, that got me into this gear all over again. 

#952. Lineage of Song: “Just the Two of Us”

 

Bill Withers

Will Smith

That Will Smith started out in a hip hop act and was for years best known for that increasingly feels like a historical curiosity. In fact the last time he released new music was twenty years ago and even that felt like an afterthought. How he survived the horrible publicity and the act itself of the Oscars slap, too…

#951. Lineage of Song: “Cecilia”

Simon & Garfunkel 

Ace of Base

Here’s one of my personal favorites, and the first (but not last) time Ace of Base shows up in these posts (these particular Swedes ended up having a pretty deep appreciation for the lineage of song). In this one they literally write a whole song about another song, a sequel song, as it were.

#950. Lineage of Song: “Under Pressure”

 

Queen & David Bowie

Vanilla Ice

One of the more egregious and inexplicable lineages brought us the brief popular career of white rapper Vanilla Ice. He at lasted sampled from greatness.

#949. Lineage of Song: “I Got a Woman”

 

Ray Charles

Kanye West

Jamie Foxx turned his starring role in Ray into a gig for a hot minute, which means his spot in “Gold Digger.”

#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.)

#941. Lineage of Song “Seven Nation Army”

White Stripes

Oak Ridge Boys

C. W. Stoneking

Living Colour

Audioslave

Flaming Lips

KT Tunstall

Metallica

Maroon 5

Kind of went all out with this one. “Seven Nation Army” might be considered the last hurrah of the rock era. It was hailed instantly as a classic. Jack White and Meg White (not siblings but exes) were the epitome of the garage band, the last innovation of the rock formula. Fans have been decrying the death of rock ‘n’ roll since at least Nirvana lost Kurt Cobain, and while there are still significant acts with hit songs (Imagine Dragons are the leading contenders), there’s minimal mainstream awareness compared to rock’s heyday, when it was inescapable. Jack White continues as a solo artist these days, and has also transformed into the last historian, still actively pursuing his passion for the form and music in general. 

#940. Lineage of Song: “Minnie the Moocher”

 

Cab Calloway was one of the classic artists to show up populating the Blues Brothers music landscape. He’s included here mostly because it’s him performing the same song in two different eras, and at least for my dad, who loves him in the movie, when I got him a CD of vintage Calloway, was utterly indifferent. Sometimes artists age to perfection, having performed the same material for years. That was my dad’s opinion, anyway.

#939. Lineage of Song “Theme from M*A*S*H”

As a kid who grew up with a dad who loved M*A*S*H, listening to the instrumental theme song was just a fact of life. It was years, decades, before I finally saw the movie (both were based on a book by Richard Hooker, which I read a few years ago), and found out the theme song had lyrics! The film’s director, Robert Altman, contracted the job of writing the lyrics to his son, who subsequently, as the legend goes, raked in perpetual piles of cash when the song played weekly and then forever in syndication, thanks to the 

#938. Lineage of Song: “Theme from Rawhide”

 

In Blues Brothers, the boys are challenged to play Country/Western music, an archaic term at this point (my parents always used it, too), but historically relevant. Western was basically traditional American folk, the original pop music (“Oh My Darling, Clementine;” “Home on the Range,” “Oh! Susanna”), part and parcel with the genre being a longtime staple in film and television, the classic cowboy way. So they didn’t do a Country song, of course, but a Western, the theme to the classic TV show. Today, like cowboy movies, Western doesn’t really exist in the pop culture, and Country is associated most with Southern living. Probably the cowboy hats the guys invariably wear are a relic of the Country/Western days.

#937. Lineage of Song: “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”

 

Blues Brothers

Solomon Burke

Wilson Pickett

Rolling Stones

Here we enter Blue Brothers territory. John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd first portrayed Jake and Elwood Blues on Saturday Night Live before filming the movie (which also happens to share the basic plot of most Muppets movies), although “the Good Ol’ Blues Brothers Boys Band” plays a lot more actual blues music in Blue Brothers 2000 (and a lot more played around them).

Bit of housekeeping this edition…As of this one Blogger isn’t just letting me watch the videos in the post. Not sure if it’s just me. But they still populate once I go to YouTube itself to play them. 

#936. Lineage of Song: “With a Little Help from My Friends”

 

Joe Cocker

John Belushi

I’m including the Belushi version because I love that it exists, it’s Belushi doing a straight version of Cocker, from the first season of Saturday Night Live, which for those who’ve never seen it, it’s amazing how little time the original cast really had; it was originally much more a spotlight for the celebrity host. Belushi, and Chevy Chase’s Weekend Update, was pretty much the exception. That’s exactly why things played out the way they did. Belushi and Chase were the breakout stars for a reason. But to be fair, they had a little help from their friends. So to speak…

#935. Lineage of Song: “Respect”

 

Otis Redding

One of the most famous songs originating with one artist but ending up owned by another is undoubtedly “Respect.”

#934. Lineage of Song: “That’s All Right, Mama”

 

Arthur Crudup

The song that launched Elvis’s career, “That’s All Right” was originally composed by Arthur Crudup on the bones of earlier blues music, and wasn’t particularly successful for his own career (he actually did another song that was basically the same thing just to get a little more mileage out of it).

#933. Lineage of Song: “Hound Dog”

 

Big Mama Thornton

Dipping back into the Elvis playbook…

It’s become somewhat popular in recent years to claim Elvis simply ripped off black performers, but the counterargument is that his willingness to sing their songs made it widely acceptable to appreciate them. Either way, great music was happening.

#932. Lineage of Song: “Ring of Fire”

 

Anita Carter

Johnny Cash

Here’s part of music lore! Cowritten by June Carter and originally recorded by her sister (somewhat forgotten and/or overshadowed by the much wider reputation of the guy June ended up marrying later, the Carter family had a considerable reputation of its own).

#931. Lineage of Song: “Layla”

 

Derek and the Dominoes 

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton’s career and legacy tends to be downplayed somehow, possibly because there was a time he leaned into the stereotype and then when he pulled back and just leaned into the music. I’m not sure there’s a lot of people who understand the difference. But you can probably hear it in these two distinct versions of the same song.

#930. Lineage of Song: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

 

Here’s one of the most legendary songs, and covers. Great voice, difficult name to remember: Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole.

#929. Lineage of Song: “Hallelujah”

 

Leonard Cohen

Jeff Buckley

John Cale

Father Ray Kelly

Pentatonix

Here’s one of the most famous songs of the modern era, and cover songs. 

Back in college I took a class in Canadian literature, and the professor was a huge fan of Leonard Cohen. In fact I learned Cohen’s poetry before knowing, really, about his music career, but then I had a look around and found his style was very close to spoken word accompanied by instruments.

Anyway, John Cale covered “Hallelujah,” setting the style for how Jeff Buckley would achieve immortality. It’s the Cale version included in Shrek, but aficionados still adhere to Buckley. Cohen’s can be heard in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.

But for my money, once I discovered it on YouTube, my favorite is probably Father Kelly’s riff.

#928. Lineage of Song: “Testify”

 

Russell Crowe 

Alan Doyle

So when people deny Russell Crowe his musical accolades, I’ve got at least one song to make the counterargument: “Testify.”

It’s easy enough to find on YouTube, usually a performance he gives at an awards ceremony he’s otherwise hosting. Between that and the Alan Doyle cover with the video starring Crowe, I assumed for a long time that it was a cover. It’s a great song. But as far as I can tell (the always reliable Wikipedia), it’s a song Crowe and Doyle wrote. Both sound great singing it. Anyway, it deserves a wide audience somewhere, and should elicit many covers through the years.

#927. Lineage of Song: “Beautiful Girls”

 

Sean Kingston

“The Beautiful Boys”

A peculiar thing happened along the way to Sherwood…

In the last twenty-odd years Russell Crowe’s public profile has undergone a remarkable series of twists. He went from being the most acclaimed actor of his generation with the Oscar-dominating one-two punch of Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind to a perennial punching bag for any number of reasons, whether an on-set “behavior challenge” that led to South Park famously lampooning him or critics somehow being more interested in his waistline than his talent. Then of course people discovered he really just wanted to…sing! (That last sentence works better if you have a bit of Monty Python in you.)

Which is hilarious because in his native Australia, Crowe was a pop star in the Eighties. Seriously. Guy has been doing music his whole life.

It got to the point, once he became famous as an actor, that Crowe went out of his way to cultivate a relationship with Alan Doyle from the Canadian band Great Big Sea, leading to a series of collaborations, both musically and onscreen. Doyle showed up in a number of Crowe’s movies in minor roles, the most significant being Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood.

The rest of the Merry Men, Scott Grimes (with legitimate vocal training behind him) and Kevin Durand (otherwise known for tough guy roles), as it turned out, liked singing, too.

The four of them ended up singing Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” on the publicity tour, and I’ve spent many hours YouTubing the results over the years. Crowe minimizes his contributions during these performances, giving all the space to Doyle, Grimes and Durand, but he clearly enjoys himself singing backup and clapping along.

With apologies to Kingston, they’re the reason the song is never that far from my thoughts.

#926. Lineage of Song: "Make You Feel My Love"

 

Garth Brooks

Billy Joel

Bob Dylan

Here's one of those instant miracles, Bob Dylan's popular comeback "Make You Feel Your Love," adopted by Garth Brooks and Billy Joel in rapid succession.

#925. Lineage of Song: "Can't Find the Time to Tell You"

 

Hootie started out as a cover band, just playing the music they loved. They’re pretty good either way.

#924. Lineage of Song: "Hey, Hey What Can I Do"

 

My brother is a big fan of Led Zeppelin, and joined the Hootie backlash early on, so when Darius Rucker said "Hey, Hey What Can I Do" was the only song that he could reasonably tackle from Robert Plant's range, he somehow took it to mean Plant had more range or some other permutation of a better voice.  I disagree with that assessment.

#923. Lineage of Song: "Blue Suede Shoes"

Of the songs from other artists Elvis covered, the earliest and most famous is undoubtedly "Blue Suede Shoes." Also tossed in for good measure are versions from Buddy Holly and John Lennon.

#922. Lineage of Song: "Can't Help Falling in Love"

UB40

Elvis

Twenty One Pilots

Elvis was known primarily for singing, and not so much for songwriting, so the bulk of his material was either written for him or outright cover material, even if his singing made it instantly identifiable as "his," making his songs all the more interesting when someone later came up with their own versions, as UB40 did with "Can't Help Falling in Love." Included also is a more recent version from Twenty One Pilots, one of my favorite active bands.

This is a version of the song “Can’t Help” borrowed its melody from, “Plaisir d’amour,” from the 18th century, including one by Paul Robeson.

#921. Lineage of Song: "Unchained Melody"

 

Todd Duncan

Les Baxter

Righteous Brothers

Elvis, as depicted in Elvis

Another astonishing cover in pop culture lore would be Elvis covering "Unchained Melody."

The trailer for Elvis chose to spotlight “Melody” rather than many other songs more closely associated with Presley, and for that reason, for me anyway, it got me thinking about what he accomplished singing it, showcasing his range, and that he wasn’t just a novelty talent famous for being famous. 

The song itself was in wide circulation a decade before the Righteous Brothers popularized it, originating in a film actually called Unchained, and performed by Todd Duncan. Les Baxter was among those who jumped at the chance at covering it. Among others U2 eventually did a version, too.

#920. Lineage of Song "I Will Always Love You"

I figured I could continue this series with arguably one of the most important covers in the history of pop music, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." There are crazy people who still think Dolly Parton’s is the best. Houston’s is as perfect a vocal recording as I’ve ever heard. 

#919. Obi-Wan Kenobi (the TV show)

Recently I had a chance to watch Obi-Wan Kenobi thanks to another Disney dump of streaming material to home video.  Being one of the genuine fans of the prequel trilogy, this was particularly a big deal for me, with Ewan McGregor reprising the title role, and Joel Edgerton in a supporting role once again as Owen Lars (back in 2002-2005, he was still struggling to make a name for himself in Hollywood, but his career took dramatic swings upward in the years that followed), not to mention Hayden Christensen in one of his several recent revivals of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

Set a decade after Revenge of the Sith, Kenobi is still reeling from not only the loss of the whole Jedi Order but his friend Skywalker.  In fact he has no idea Skywalker survived the duel on Mustafar.  He eeks out a meager existence on Tatooine, kept a formal distance from young Luke by Lars, unwilling to let a man who failed his own friend have any responsibility over the boy he's taken into his care.  

The remaining Jedi are still being hunted, this time by a band of Inquisitors, one of whom we eventually learn has a considerable secret, a parallel narrative that dovetails nicely with the unlikely and yet compelling reunion between Kenobi and Skywalker.  Right off the bat the stakes change dramatically when Leia is kidnapped from Alderaan, and Kenobi is asked for the first time to rescue her.

The results could've been better, they could've been worse.  

The acting from unestablished actors can be spotty, no real attempt at quality control apparently made in the rush to get through production, which began life as a film but reverted to a TV show when Solo underperformed at the box office.  Like Star Trek sticking to familiar formulas, these Disney+ shows have begun to stick to predictable beats, and you either accept that or you don't, the bad guys keeping the good guys on the run and frequently resorting to backwater worlds that are always this side of sci-fi Western towns in need of some kind of rescue.

Obviously the whole Leia affair is a retcon, one solved in the traditional "we promise not to bring it up in the material that follows but was filmed long before" manner, and even Kenobi and Vader having an epic confrontation of any kind before the Death Star is a stretch, but a more acceptable one.  They likely chose Leia over Luke for the arc in the interests of going for the unexpected, but at least it gives us a little more Bail Organa (once more played by Jimmy Smits) and fleshing out the world of Alderaan.

That the show brought back Edgerton but essentially had nothing for him to do except deliver a few pithy lines early on and then late in the show indulge in the kind of redeeming action sequences he clearly outgrew later, is the most mystifying thing about it.  I've been a huge fan of his for more than a decade at this point, and he's long since proven his exceptional acting skills.  The Leia heist robbed him, most of all, of quality material.

Little enough is asked of McGregor, too, but given the nature of his arc it's more understandable.  He and Christensen get to indulge in the best lightsaber sequences since their heyday, and that alone was surely worth the price of admission.  By the time we catch presumably our last glimpse of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, the whole thing has proven worth it.  It's decent material.  I don't know how much it matters to an increasingly restless fanbase who never warmed to the prequels much less sequels, and hypocritically fell in love with goofy animated shows and Baby Yoda after devoting all their time to demonizing Jar Jar Binks.  And truthfully I don't care.

#918. Lineage of Song: “Hurt”

Ending this series for now with the cover that cemented a legacy, a career, and a life.

The Nine Inch Nails original version is something I had to work my way through later, since it was Johnny Cash’s take that I heard first. The Cash video is especially moving, and clearly inspired later late-stage takes like Billy Joel’s recent  “Turn the Lights Back On.”

My dad’s a pretty big fan of Johnny Cash and there was a period where we listened together all the time, but it was all his earlier stuff. To this day I’m not sure he knows “Hurt” exists, probably wouldn’t know what to make of it, the same as although hilariously the reverse of his relationship with Cab Calloway, whom he adores in Blues Brothers but when I got him a CD of his vintage material had no idea why it was remotely relevant, because there was only one version he was prepared to admire.

“Hurt” will long be the classic example (it’s now more than two decades old!) of what it looks like for an aging well-known music act to make a definitive late career popular impact. Knowing what Cash sounded like in his prime and then hearing him like this is elegiac. 

#917. Warrior, The National, “About Today”

 

2011 ended up being a crazy year for me. The last movie I saw in theaters was Warrior that September. But, oh was I rewarded.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton play brothers who end up fighting in an MMA tournament by the end of the movie, and of course in the final round they face each other. It’s the definition of classic filmmaking, possibly the last time Hollywood revisited its Golden Age successfully. 

It’s a sequence pumped full of drama, and the denouement is pitch perfect, in part because of the song playing in the background, “About Today” by The National.

Now, because by 2011 pop rock had all but disappeared from radio and pop culture in general, I knew nothing at all about The National, and didn’t pursue them on their own terms for more than a decade. In fact it wasn’t until last year when they had one of those compilation discs attached to a music magazine that I finally did, promoting their latest CD, which I also subsequently got.

If all this had played out just a few years prior, it would’ve been very different. 2011 was the beginning of a whole downturn in my circumstances, so I had very little money to play with by the time I discovered The National. I was grateful for having that moment in Warrior with them, and the memory to keep them in mind long enough to get back to them at some point.

#916. Lineage of Song “All Along the Watchtower”

U2

Bob Dylan

Jimi Hendrix

In the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, the Jimi Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower” plays in the closing moments, which for me was a perfect note to end on, and one of my favorite moments of a TV show or movie using an established song to incorporate into a scene.

Otherwise this one’s pretty straightforward. It’s a Bob Dylan song Jimi Hendrix quickly adopted, and then later U2 did their take, too, and they’re all great. This is the strength and purity of artists embracing great music and just keeping it going. It’s the whole point.