Cover Songs Poll: 50 Random Favorites

If you've never heard of Highway 51 or Gloria Stewart it's because these are embarrassing typos.

voted the slits

DEVO – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
DINOSAUR JR. – Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
GALAXIE 500 – Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste (Jonathan Richman)
NINA SIMONE – Wild Is the Wind (Johnny Mathis)
THE FACES – I Know I’m Losing You (Temptations)
THEM – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan)
TV ON THE RADIO – Mr. Grieves (Pixies)

are all in contention for me.
I want to check out some interesting looking ones I dont know.

Al Green for the sheer merit of the final product, which is just a perfect recording.
But TVOTR for the most transformative - they found something in that Pixies song which I wouldn't have heard there.

I'm scared to listen to that TFS cover of the Bee Gee's - I used to like that band, and i fear that would be the final nail in the coffin.

(ugh, that TFS cover of Stayin Alive is actually worse than i feared)

Tough call between Magazine and Geraldine Fibbers — both have personal significance— the Magazine cover is one I learned to play on the drums with much difficulty, and the GF, one of my top curatorial moments was enabling Carla B and Malcolm Mooney to duet on that song.

rollin dany!

didn't know it was a cover tbh

It's between the thrash ending of dino jr's just like heaven and Devo's "baby" repetition in satisfaction for me.

I won't pretend to have heard most of these, but of the ones I have heard, Slits, DEVO, and Al Green are my top three.

A lot of great ones, but I'm voting for Lizzy Mercier Descloux as I use it as a sure-fire DJ hit.

Never knew the Brothers Johnson was a cover...From those--from the dozen or so I know--definitely Husker Du. Them and/or Toots & the Maytals next.

"The Dark End of the Street" over "It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue".

On the other hand, I love Tim Buckley, I love the Cocteau Twins, I like "Song to the Siren" a lot, I never liked this rendition.

...and the Magazine track is adequate but might be my least-favourite of all their recordings.

Anytime Elizabeth Fraser sings it's gold but the This Mortal Coil cover is outerworldly.!

I know these:

AL GREEN – How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? (Bee Gees)
BROTHERS JOHNSON – Strawberry Letter 23 (Shuggie Otis)
CHARLES BRADLEY – Changes (Black Sabbath)
DEVO – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
DINOSAUR JR. – Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
ISAAC HAYES – Walk on By (Dionne Warwick)
MAGAZINE – I Love You, Big Dummy (Captain Beefheart)
NINA SIMONE – Wild Is the Wind (Johnny Mathis)
PET SHOP BOYS – Where the Streets Have No Name (U2/Frankie Valli)
PJ HARVEY – Highway 51 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
ROBERT WYATT – I’m a Believer (The Monkees)
SOFT CELL – Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go? (Gloria Stewart/Supremes)
THE BEAT – Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS – The Dark End of the Street (James Carr)
THE ISLEY BROTHERS – Ohio/Machine Gun (CSNY, Jimi Hendrix)
THE SLITS – I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)
THEM – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan)
THIS MORTAL COIL – Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley)

I approve of pretty much all of them, with the possible exception of Harvey's Dylan cover, which I've just never enjoyed that much. My vote would be a coin toss between "Changes" and "Tears of a Clown."

Will rep for the Emma Swift, Gillian Welch, and FBB covers on the list. But gotta vote for Isaac Hayes. Love the Dionne version of the song - Hayes just makes it expand and explode.

Isaac Hayes for me

this is a great selection. have great affection for a lot of the ones i’ve heard, and am intrigued by a few others (descloux, gillian welch, tropical fuck storm)

one that i absolutely love and haven’t seen mentioned yet is the george faith, which is one of my absolute favorite black ark recordings ever

it's been fun to check some of these out. i have such a soft spot for that toots song, i think i'm gonna have to vote for it.

My own vote is for Baby Huey. A 9.5 minute personal outpouring like little else.

Huh, hadn't heard that Tropical Fuck Storm cover - digging into the series of covers they did for that 7" series, really like the Wake In Fright vibes on their cover of Talking Heads' "Heaven" - very different hearing a feral Aussie singing "Everyone is trying to get to the bar" compared to David Byrne. Would have guessed that their version of Lost Animal's "Lose The Baby" song was an original, too.

Surprised it wasn’t “Eight Miles High” for Hüsker Dü, that would have gotten my vote. As-is, I’m going with Them, but Devo, Faces/Rod Stewart and the Flying Burrito Brothers were runner ups.

And the Beat too, another runner up.

Lots to like here, and a few I should check out, but I'm leaning towards the Pet Shop Boys at first glance. Admittedly it's mainly because I'm a hopeless sucker for the mashing together of the disparate source material. The transitions into the jaunty Frankie Valli bits still make my auditory circuitry kinda tingly in that context!

I admit I went with Love is All Around instead of Eight Miles High just because it’s less heralded. I could have also picked a few different Fall songs but happened to be on a kick lately with Rollin’ Dany.

I consider “I Know I’m Losing You” to be either a vote for the version on Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story or the one on the outstanding Five Guys Walk Into a Bar box set.

The Charlotte Dada isn’t on spotify but that one is my favorite here.

For those unaware of it, please listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjVW4aQ4JB8

Had no idea Geraldine Fibbers covered Can!!

Thought we might have polled Fall cover versions, but couldn't find one - there are a couple of threads, though: Fall Covers and OK, classic/dud time: Fall Cover Versions

(Somebody should make a Fall covers poll)

I won't pretend to have heard most of these, but of the ones I have heard, Slits, DEVO, and Al Green are my top three.

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Wednesday, 16 July 2025 17:02 (yesterday)

Wow, my first quick skim landed on exactly these three. Still mulling my vote.

"Eight Mile High"/"Love Is All Around" are pretty much dead even for me--would entirely depend on what kind of mood I'm in (they couldn't be more different in mood).

Wish I could relive the moment when I first heard Isaac Hayes’ “Walk On By”

TV on the Radio's Young Liars EP was huge for me when it came out. Beyond Mr. Grieves just being an insanely great cover, I think it would be in the running in a poll of best hidden tracks. So I'm going with that.

The Charlotte Dada, which Moka linked upthread, is great.

I discovered the Charlotte Dada track from this very board not too long ago.

I must acknowledge that I know very few of these. Has anyone made a Spotify playlist?

I quit Spotify but here’s my Apple cover songs playlist that has most of these plus nearly 150 others

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/run-for-cover/pl.u-e98lMKjFzog3ee

I'll link to some others that I believe aren't on streaming. This is just one of my favorite female soul stompers (just under two minutes too)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ejvbPE8_g

The Brian Eno & the Winkies track is from a 1974 Peel Session, around the time Here Come the Warm Jets was released. That session also features an early, rocking version of "I'll Come Running." It's just funny that he of all people did this song and I always get a kick of hearing him sing "chicks were born to give you fever."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPTYnl1yFr0

The full, nine-minute version of Phil Flowers' "Like a Rolling Stone" is just outrageously over the top. I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MECP3nyTTAU

The Outsiders' version of Summertime Blues was on one of the early Back from the Grave comps and is my favorite version I've heard. Pure, fuzzed out frat punk raucousness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-cggp83jpM

Petula Clark’s Kinks cover. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s ye-ye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9RS6OJPK-U

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Pet Shop Boys, because as Nag! Nag! Nag! mentioned upthread, they took two very different songs and made them work together. Also because it pissed off Bono.

It did?!

Algreenphabetical order made this one easy for me, as that's my favorite cover recording, and somewhere in my top two-three Al Green records. Did pause on the Maytal's "Country Roads," which I also adore...

I’ve only heard about half of these. Disappointed the Bad Livers’ cover of Lust For Life didn’t make the cut. Voted Slits in the end.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.