Does a Beatles cover that is better than the original really exist?

Only one nom per song!

OK, I'll kick off with Colin Newman and "Blue Jay Way". I could be wrong, but I'm assuming he did that one as it was probably the only Beatles song to have never been covered until then...

801 did a bitchin' "Tomorrow Never Knows" but better? Dunno...

I'd love to say Redd Kross' version of "It Won't Be Long," but that would probably be stretching the truth.

i really like steve earle's "i'm looking through you"

Nina Simone's cover of "Here Comes the Sun" is definitely better than the original, in fact it is one of the best songs ever recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2XCgcxsvTg

^^^^actually came here to say that!

Nina's 20 minute cover version of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" is also awesome, but that's not a Beatles tune.

Stevie Wonder - "We Can Work It Out"

Actually, Elliott Smith's rendering of "Because" is pretty nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT6JKFKklqQ

Not really

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q5mlb3Bjzs

I can't say i can think of one

i think the only way this can be done is by thinking of a CRAPPY beatles song that someone improved?

I really prefer the Wilson Pickett version of "Hey Jude" to the original, but I guess that's a somewhat controversial opinion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IFB9Q_3t_k

^^^the only song I considered nominating tbh

but couldn't really decide if I like it more. I am pretty fond of the original

No, that's a good one Tuom.

dunno what a white guy named Skydog has to do with Wilson Pickett tho

Did anyone ever do "You know my name" ?

or Your Mother Should Know?

Charlotte Dada - "Don't Let Me Down".
Emmylou Harrs - "Here, There and Everywhere".

The good thing about the Pickett version is that there's far less of that "na na na na-na-na" in the end.

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

I knew Mike Batt's cover version of "Your mother should know" before the Beatles version...

It's not better tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ5WPXxNzPU

Better? Dunno. But pretty good, considering there is no definitive version of the original.

If I'd rather hear the cover at this point than the orig., does that make it better?

If so, Wes Montgomery- Eleanor Rigby

Ordinarily, yes. But most people have "beatles lethargy" and do not need to hear them again, whereas a new version of "Hey Jude" may provide interest.

Still, the impartial advisor may well concede that the original is still better.

prefer the EWF "Got To Get You Into My Life" to the original by a good margin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=485ynI-YZ2M

aretha's version of let it be

Anne Murray's 1974 (#8 Top 100) cover of "You Won't See Me"

Where is Geir to tell us that everything the Beatles did is better and people should write their own songs?

"Drive My Car" - Cristina.

"Happiness Is A Warm Gun" - The Breeders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq6yNinI5zo

i love the breeders but get the fuck out of here with that

i really like steve earle's "i'm looking through you"

― zero money down on new and pwned vehicles (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, August 18, 2009 5:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Here ya go folks. XD

http://www.dandywarhols.com/

oh fuck i hadn't actually listened to this before

it's awesome

If you like heavy acid rock, you'll prefer The Moving Sidewalks version of I Want To Hold Your Hand. Not quite sure what this youtube video is all about, but it's got the song.

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

that would be Eddie Hazel - I Want You (She's So Heavy)

het, i deserve the cretits for this thread!

Fanny - "Hey Bulldog".

Alison Krauss and Tony Furtado do an amazing version of "I Will".

the godz - i'm looking through you

I prefer The Feelies blazing version of "Everyone's Got Something to Hide Except Me & My Monkey"

Souixsie & the Banshees take on "Dear Prudence" is at least equal the original - but that's a high bar.

oh, and I second or third the Wilson Pickett "Hey Jude." Never been that fond of the original.

i love the breeders but get the fuck out of here with that

― Can someone summarise what's going on with the GOON? (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, August 19, 2009 12:25 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh no this is actually a really great track

Lydia Lunch, "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"

― Hugh Manatee (WmC), Tuesday, August 18, 2009 4:40 PM (3 hours ago)

Stevie Wonder - "We Can Work It Out"

― Dominique, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 1

Seconded. Fantastic version.

OK, I'll kick off with Colin Newman and "Blue Jay Way". I could be wrong, but I'm assuming he did that one as it was probably the only Beatles song to have never been covered until then...

― Mark G, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 10:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

More of a remix than a cover, but check track 8 here...

http://illegalart.net/mp3s/06.03.html

Plenty of room for Dave
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/61fps/2008/12/08-15/dante.jpeg

xxxxpost yeah, and because of that, picking kickass covers would be made easier.

for bonus points, you could do a parallel boxset of worst covers. Which would be harder to choose.

Lowell Fulson's "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"

And as someone who hasn't felt a thing for "Hey Jude" in years I'll rep for the Overton Berry Trio's version (it's on the Light in the Attic comp Wheedle's Groove), which is just the coda and done as a funky piano-bass-drums number.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1dYqYJhrBk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kR4YChFdmo

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

lol

I don't agree w/ a lot of this stuff so far. here's the good rockist answer:

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

Wow, I never felt the lyrics of "Eleanor Rigby" until I saw them acted out so poignantly in that Moog video.

Jimi Hendrix "Sgt Pepper" does not answer the question.

What hiphop song sampled Junior Parker "Taxman"? it's killing me.

Al Green's "I Want To Hold Your Hand" is amazing and I think better than the original. I dig both Ray Charles and Aretha's "Eleanor Rigby"s but I don't think they top the original.

^But the Beatles were covering Buck Owens.

Goddamn it... I knew that and completely ignored it my furor of posting. egg->face

this question is not phrased well at all, of course they exist. i prefer 90% of the beatles covers i've heard to the originals.

When one is tired of the Beatles, one is tired of the Beatles.

dorothy ashby - the fool on the hill

Get Back - The Deirdre Wilson Tabac

The whole of the Easy Star Allstars tribute to Sgt Peppers is a joy.

The two ones I was thinking about have already been mentioned, Cristina and Dorothy Ashby.

What hiphop song sampled Junior Parker "Taxman"? it's killing me.

cypress hill - i wanna get high

Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it...

^lock thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mM6CdBeqZY

Caetano Veloso's 'for noone' and 'lady madonna' are amongst my favorite but it's impossible to top the originals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvQ3gFi5Pg0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg1y0w4O4Aw

Also Santo & Johnny - And I love her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x43guk3aRQ4

Rita Lee from Os Mutantes did a complete bossa n beatles album with a couple of good ones. There's also the Motown beatles covers which has a wicked version of 'come together' by the Supremes. Although I've read some reviews expressing nothing but disgust about it.

Just thought about it and the Breeders cover for 'Happiness is a warm gun' is perhaps the only one I'd take over the original. Not that they're wildly different but I heard the Breeders version first so that's the one that made the stronger impression in me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8K0yLAtzCY

Also this thread: best beatles covers. ever.

i really like steve earle's "i'm looking through you"

― zero money down on new and pwned vehicles (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, August 18, 2009 5:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

― ovum if you got 'em (gbx), Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Came here to suggest this, but instead I'll third it.

I love the Beatles' version, but Gladys Knight & the Pips' take on "Let It Be" is even better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH3cMslOG9Q

Ricky Lee Jones - "For No One" - conveys the desolation of this song about 100000 times better than the Beatles' inexplicably jaunty take on it

Just remembered... Steve Hillage "It's All Too Much".

Jaunty?

The thing is, I find that unless a particular collection has elements that I'm not 100% totally familiar with (for want of a better way of describing them), I can forget I'm even listaning to them.

e.g. I can put the "Magical Mystery Tour" album on, and it finishes and I go "Oh!" It's not an active listen anymore, it's overfamiliar. Apart from "Blue Jay Way" and/or.. I might as well be listening to silence.

some covers to choose from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_who_have_covered_The_Beatles

somehow i don't remember any great covers which haven't been mentioned yet. i quite liked steve harley & cockney rebels version of "here comes the sun" when it was reelased. when i heard the original later on i thought but that is not a beatles song, steve harley did it better.

^^^^^^^^^^^^this!!!!!

Mark G - compared with Ricky Lee they practically sound like a barbershop quartet

fair enough.

Time for a Spotify playlist. Stuff from this thread up top, stuff from the old thread down below.

http://open.spotify.com/user/miketd/playlist/4Lh3k6v9TrixXYbD4ThV3w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QSW7LXvGI

The Caetano posts reminded me that Rogerio Duprat covered both "Lady Madonna" and "Flying." His "Lady Madonna" is a hoot (not better by any means, yet fun), but "Flying" might - just might - best the original.

"Al Green's "I Want To Hold Your Hand" is amazing and I think better than the original"

This is the truth.

"Shut up Al Green!"

I love that he sings "I get high". And the way the party sounds at the beginning, I don't doubt it! I would have loved to have been there for that party.

"best beatles covers. ever." is not asking the same question, but a few people posting here seem to think it is.

No Joe Cocker, huh?
I might go for that. "With A Little Help From My Friends" maybe but especially "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window." With Beatles versions always spend too much too thinking about whether the words really mean anything, but Cocker's over the top antics way too distracting for any of that.

He also did "I'll Cry Instead" which was Ok..

Oh yeah. I knew I was gonna miss some.

Realized that I'd actually never heard the Cocker stuff without video. Fixed that. So yeah, the two big ones (Little Help from My Friends and She Came In...) are pretty easily better than the Beatles versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4a8vMZGaFg

This one, obviously:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJY7KW_YAac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTHgO8F4V1I

(not sure what the video has to do with the song, but it's totally charming.)

Not better--but certainly heavier. And though the vox are kinda laughable at the beginning, the song really goes somewhere in this 7:15 version (not that the original doesn't).

Worth a listen if you like Swiss metal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qamBmWt8Cwo