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- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
Some people get Mania, others get Pandemonium
Brother/good influence Jack Gerber just sent me this great cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation” by JL’s close friend/bad influence Harry Nilsson. It was unreleased until 2008, when it appeared as a bonus track on Aerial Pandemonium Ballet.
Lennon covers almost never come close to the original; Lennon’s paramount gift was to make his material feel so personal, indubitably his. It bothered him, especially post-Beatles, that fewer people covered his songs than covered Paul’s, but you can understand why — who could possibly equal his originals. Still, this version of Isolation holds its own, and if he heard it, probably pleased him.
Almost all of Nilsson’s work has this bittersweetness to it; and if anybody could be famous and isolated — surrounded by people, yet fundamentally alone, as the phrase goes — it was Harry Nilsson. (Update 2015: The New Yorker named this song one of Harry’s ten best lesser-known songs. See the rest here.)
“Power to the People” – Black Eyed Peas
“I’m Losing You” – Corinne Bailey Rae
Mike — won’t say what this is, when he starts to sing i get shivers…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAdHOnQIip0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Working Class Hero by Marianne Faithfull on her great Broken English album.
Very few covers of post-Beatle Lennon – let’s face it, he wrote dirges. The Beatles managed to undirge his songs (Help was originally a ballad). Everything is soooo slow…
Sorry, Lennon and McCartney were crap without each other.
Donny Hathaway covered “Jealous Guy” on his live 1971 album “Everything Is Everything” –
Oddly enough, an American Idol contestant (named Casey James) did a great cover of Jealous Guy last year.
And I’m a sucker for Rufus Wainwright’s Across the Universe.
But Mike, I think you’re right that some of his (especially solo) stuff is almost un-coverable. “Watching the Wheels” is a great song but I almost don’t want to see anybody try it.
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Both of the covers Glaven mentions are from the Instant Karma: The Campaign to Save Darfur album. I wrote about that on my own blog, here (in pre-Dullblog days). Despite a few duds (and I personally would count the Black Eyed Peas’ contribution among them), it’s a good concentration of interesting Lennon covers. (On the other hand, the earlier tribute album Working Class Hero, despite the intriguing lineup of alternative bands, turned out to be a concentration of not-at-all-interesting Lennon covers. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Grow Old With Me” is nice, though.)
Glen Campbell did a beautiful “Grow Old with Me” on his album “Meet Glen Campbell” (2008, I think).
REM’s cover of #9 Dream, also from the Darfur album.
Don’t agree about the Lennon solo dirges, first couple of years give a lot of Beatle filler a run for their money in unfiltered delivery.
And now over to some blatant self-promotion : here’s a cover I did on the 8th last year for a Belgian radiostation, song works in any version it seems…:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zG47cPgapE
Hope you don’t dislike it,
ciao,
Pascal.
Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck recently released a cover of “Isolation” that is really good IMO. Check it out on Youtube. I didn’t know Johnny could sing. I knew he was a musician on the side. There are some Lennon covers that I really like, such as A-Ha’s “#9 Dream” and Sinead O’Connor’s version of “Mind Games”. Barbra Streisand, whatever you think of her music, did an excellent version of “Mother” on her debut album (along with “Love”, another John song).
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It’s true that it’s hard to improve on a Lennon original. I would say that his Beatles songs are often the definitive version, which is probably why they aren’t covered as much as Paul’s. Take “No Reply”, for instance. Everyone it seems who has heard that song adores it. Rosanne Cash called it her favorite Beatles song and wrote a whole article about it. Yet, the only cover of “No Reply” that I ever heard was a live version from the Raspberries.
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Funny enough, I wouldn’t say that John’s SOLO songs are less covered than Paul’s solo songs. There are 90+ versions of “Jealous Guy”, about the same as Paul’s “My Love”. There are more versions of “Imagine” than any solo Paul song. Really, other than “My Love”, what solo songs of Paul’s are widely covered?
“Maybe I’m Amazed” is a pretty widely covered McCartney solo song. The Peruvian band We All Together did a few McCartney solo covers, including “Bluebird,” “Band on the Run,” “Tomorrow,” and “Some People Never Know.” More recently, the Foo Fighters did a great cover of “Band On The Run.”
A couple of good albums of McCartney cover versions are Coming Up: Indie Tribute to Paul McCartney and Listen To What The Man Said: Popular Artists Pay Tribute to the Music of Paul McCartney. And then there was “The Art of McCartney” cover album that came out a few years ago, that I didn’t think was particularly good.
“whatever you think of Barbra Streisand’s music” Barbra Joan Streisand – the 1971 album
with the Lennon covers – is NOT her debut!!!
I think it’s her 13th or so!
Fun Fact: her ACTUAL debut in 1963, like that of the Beatles the same year, contained a version of A Taste of Honey
Forgot about “Maybe I’m Amazed”. Good catch.
[…] on the film “Who Is Harry Nilsson? (And why is everybody talking about him?)” 2011: Nilsson’s cover of “Isolation” 2013: Harry Nilsson: The Shadow Beatle (MG discusses the tragic arc of Nilsson and Lennon) 2014: […]