Neil, Billie Joe, and Dolly

I love a good cover song. My most vivid memories of concerts is when the band pulls out a great cover. You expected to come and sing along to all of your favorites, and suddenly there’s the rush of your brain recalibrating to sing along to this entirely unexpected song. It’s not always a great fit for the band or sometimes you just don’t recognize it. Sometimes the band plays what you think is a brand new song, and it sounds like the greatest thing they’ve ever done, but you learn it’s a cover, hunt down the original, and it just doesn’t live up to what you remember. Then the version the band eventually records in a studio is even worse. So covers can be tricky, and entire albums of them tend to not be worth the effort at all. I don’t think I know anyone who ranks David Bowie’s albums in the same order, but I think they pretty much all agree that “Pin Ups” belongs on the bottom. When I first heard “The Spaghetti Incident,” by Guns and Roses I was like “what is this garbage?” But now that I know most of those songs in their original versions, I can have a lot more fun with it. Some pop punk band did an album of covers of movie themes and, by god, that entire album will be stuck in my head for eternity! Is it good? Who can say, but from the first time I heard it, I could sing along to almost every single song. And I think it was so successful they did a bunch more, but from what I recall, the songs weren’t as fun. It’s rare that an entire album of covers is worth seeking out, but I’m still a giant sucker for them. And recently I came across a few that I’ve been spinning with some regularity. 

I’ll spare you my personal history with Green Day, it’s probably not too unlike most people’s, but I think I’ve settled on considering myself a fan, and appreciate a lot of what they do, side-projects in particular. I’m sure I listen to albums by Foxboro Hot Tubs, The Network, and Pinhead Gunpowder much more often than any of their “proper” albums. Their most recent release was fun-as-hell power-pop garage rock more in line with their many side-projects, so it is not surprising that their lead singer released a solo record of power-pop covers called “No Fun Mondays.” Jenna heard me playing this record and was like “so these are just songs he likes?” Exactly. Sometimes these kinds of records have a theme or something, but these were released weekly on the internet before being collected here, and I think he was just like “this week…hmm, lemme see what I know how to play.” But it works— this album is so much fun! I don’t even have a favorite song from it although the Prince/Bangles one referenced by the title comes close and the final track caught me completely off guard in the best way. I remember in the 90s being exposed to Billy Bragg through tangentially-related artists and eventually liking his work, but never fully connecting. But the one phrase from probably the first song of his I heard has always stuck with me:

I saw two shooting stars last night

I wished on them but they were only satellites

It is wrong to wish on space hardware

I wish I wish I wish you’d care

I’m not even sure why it stuck, it seems almost laughably awkward, but I think that underscores the urgency of the emotion. Billie does a good job, though it’s not much of a change  from the original. Jenna seemed to like it too, but maybe not three times in a row. 

He also covers a song called “That Thing You Do” (which I think was also on that pop punk movie-themes-album mentioned above). How do I know this song? I know it’s from a Tom Hanks movie of the same title about a fictional one-hit-wonder band, but I sure haven’t seen it, and I don’t think it was that big of a hit, right? Somehow though a fake song is out there enough that I know every word. Bravo Mr. Hanks, you win again.

I sort of had a faint idea that Neil Young did some kind of project using Jack White’s old-time recording booth, but as much as I like Neil Young (talking about his 80s synth album “Trans” was a big impetus for starting this blog), most things Jack White-related after The White Stripes tend to make my eyes glaze over, if not roll completely into the back of my head. But as the manager of a record store in 2021, I’m apparently required to know his every move, so I’m kind of familiar. But when a customer brought a copy of “A Letter Home” to the counter asking if I knew what it was, I was as surprised as she was that I didn’t know anything about it: Jack White and Neil Young?! Jack’s involvement, it seems, is guitar and backing vocals on a song, but I guess since it’s made with his equipment, he’s credited as producer. Whatever he did or didn’t do worked incredibly well. The album is just Neil Young singing minimal versions of great songs. This approach, coupled with his unique, haunting, vulnerable voice bring the lyrics forward as the focus in a way they often are not. Something like Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown,” or “Reason to Believe” made famous by Rod Stewart, are nearly impossible for me to take seriously because of the ubiquity of their best-known iterations, but performed this way, they regain some dignity.  Young’s take on Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”  might be my new favorite version. This song has one of those musical phrases that I simply cannot get over no matter how many times I hear it, or who is singing it. And apparently I’m not alone as I just learned that it was “borrowed” for the song “Greatest Love of All” by the band Sexual Chocolate. Lightfoot actually took the songwriter to court over it, but dropped the case fearing the negativity was becoming harmful to the burgeoning career of the band’s singer Randy Watson. What a guy!

When I started at the record store a couple years ago, Dolly Parton records were piling up in the discount bin, now we can’t keep them in stock, new or used. I don’t even know how I found this album. I was probably listening to a random Spotify playlist of covers, but I know the second I heard this single synthesizer note come on, I was hooked, and then Dolly began to sing 

You can dance with the guy

Who gives you the Eye, let him hold you tight

You can smile every smile for the man

Who held your hand neath the pale moon light

Now obviously, I’ve heard this song before, in at least twenty different ways, and I tend to enjoy them. But not only have I never heard it done like this, I’ve never heard Dolly Parton accompanied by just a synthesizer. And that, my friends, in case it needs to be said, is a very good thing. The song is the opening track of the 1984 covers album “The Great Pretender.” I assume this was an attempt to stay relevant after the runaway success of 9 to 5. I was a kid when this would have come out, and Dolly was a ubiquitous personality, but I didn’t know much about her, just knew who she was. I don’t think I even knew any song of hers besides 9 to 5, and for some reason her duets with Kenny Rogers. I definitely thought they were married. Then years later, I saw Steel Magnolias, and suddenly got a whole new impression of her. I mean Ouisa is my girl for LIFE, but I love Truvy almost as much. I would actually let a professional cut my hair occasionally if she was the one to do it. But still, I didn’t really get to know Dolly. I could probably still not have named one other song by her until I saw that episode of Dawson’s Creek. In case you are blissfully unaware: a hipster guy mansplains “I Will Always Love You” to one of the main characters and of course she instantly falls for him. So obviously I borrowed that schtick, and I’m sorry to all of you who had to hear me attempt to recreate that magic moment. A few years later I heard The White Stripes cover “Jolene,” so when I went with my dad to see her at the casino a few years ago, I knew three songs. I’m not sure if it was an off night, or she was using this free-ticket casino circuit to work out a new, bigger stage show, but it was a scattered performance to put it kindly. Parts were fun though, and the music was fantastic! I immediately began listening to her more and I began to finally understand. Goddamn, I love Dolly, I just wish I’d known her earlier. 

Throughout my further listening though, I somehow missed this album of covers until now. I has foolish hopes that the rest of the songs would continue in the style of the opening track, but sadly they do not. I mean there are some drum machines and fake horns and such throughout, but it never again fully commits. There’s a fun version of “I Walk the Line,” and a surprisingly uplifting and drum machine-assisted “Turn Turn Turn,“ but most are standard covers of classic songs like “I Can’t Help Myself” and “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine.” I would say that the album deserves its relative obscurity, but at the end of side 1, when “Downtown” has finished, one true standout steps forward. I think it has to do with minor piano chords and other musical things I don’t understand, but I was instantly struck by the feeling that I had some connection to this song. Though musically “We Had it All” is impossibly melancholic on its own, when her voice comes in it breaks my heart. I was sure that I had heard it before, but despite it being another one that has seemingly been covered to DEATH, I can’t seem to find the version that lingers just inside my mind’s ear. It is possible that it was this version, I guess it was a minor hit; however, the single was a apparently an “alternate mix” featuring guitar in place of the piano. That guitar version is a hard song to find as it is not online anywhere, but I finally tracked it down, and it’s…just fine, not really worth all the trouble. I guess Waylon Jennings made this famous, and Keith Richards has a version, but they can’t hold a candle to Dolly. 

In comparison to Neil Young’s poignant “A Letter Home” and Billie Joe Armstrong’s infectious “No Fun Mondays,” “The Great Pretender” probably shouldn’t even be a contender, as there are only two songs I can recommend at all, but I have to say that I’ve listened to it far more than the other two combined.