Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 55728
Loc: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ...
“our view of "honoring the song" comes from the perspective vantage point of a virtuoso musician and an arranger, Doug, not a songwriter. It's part of your nature to NOT play a simple C F G pattern when you could substitute CMaj7 Dm9 and G13 instead. I'm not going to rule out that you may be a genius at piano and arranging. And perhaps you are even a talented composer. But one thing your statement reveals is that you are NOT a SONG-writer.”
I hate to break this to you, but I’m kind of a black belt songwriter myself. I won the Dr. Demento novelty songwriting contest back in 1977 and my 2005 album “midlife chrysalis“ won some kind of independent music award. I would suggest that you broaden your definition of “covering a song.“
There are note for note covers and there are creative covers. Both are legitimate, but only one works with tribute bands in bars . I’ve done that too, but it’s not really my thing.
“Because songwriters are very possessive about their babies. They hate it when someone changes their chords or melody, because they often put vast amounts of time and effort into carving and whittling the song until they feel they've created the perfect expression of their emotional intent.”
oh, “they “hate it? :-) come on, it’s a big world out there. I’ve had my songs interpreted by other artists. And in fact, one of my album projects coming up in the next year is going to consist of me giving songs to 10 different artists and asking them to perform my music the way they want. It’s going to be called “You Do Me.” I might be involved on a couple of the tracks because that’s my nature but I welcome their interpretation and that includes changing rhythms and harmonies. Just not lyrics.
There is a terrific vocalist named Holly Cole. Her versions of standards are so radically different than what has come before that even she herself says “I don’t cover songs. I uncover them.
Doug - Dylan's reaction to Jimi's version of Watchtower:
Quote:
In 1995, Dylan described his reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."[64] In the booklet accompanying his 1985 Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way ... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."[65] In 1974, Dylan, with the Band, embarked on his first concert tour since his 1966 world tour. From the first show of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour on January 3, 1974, in Chicago, the shows featured what Heylin described as a "Hendrixized" version of "All Along the Watchtower".[66][12] From the first live performance, Dylan has consistently performed the song closer to Hendrix's version than to his own original recording.[12]
Edited by Andy McClelland (09/23/2405:31 PM)
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Horn player tuning: Give me Bb.
Never mind, Just give me a B and I'll flatten it myself.
And then there's "Little Help From My Friends". Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 did a wonderful version with some chord changes and a totally different groove. And of course Joe Cocker's version.
And have you ever heard the Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (with John Cowan) version of Oh Darlin'? It takes it to a new level.
_________________________
Horn player tuning: Give me Bb.
Never mind, Just give me a B and I'll flatten it myself.
Doug - Dylan's reaction to Jimi's version of Watchtower:
Quote:
In 1995, Dylan described his reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."[64] In the booklet accompanying his 1985 Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way ... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."[65] In 1974, Dylan, with the Band, embarked on his first concert tour since his 1966 world tour. From the first show of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour on January 3, 1974, in Chicago, the shows featured what Heylin described as a "Hendrixized" version of "All Along the Watchtower".[66][12] From the first live performance, Dylan has consistently performed the song closer to Hendrix's version than to his own original recording.[12]
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Fighting political fires with fire for 23 years...
There is a terrific vocalist named Holly Cole. Her versions of standards are so radically different than what has come before that even she herself says “I don’t cover songs. I uncover them.
I feel the same way as you, a cover should probably have a new reason for being. but I'm not listening to Shenandoah again, the first time I did it literally bummed me out to have to come on and tell you I hated it, and I did as I recall get lambasted for doing so. heh
Doug - Dylan's reaction to Jimi's version of Watchtower:
Quote:
In 1995, Dylan described his reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."[64] In the booklet accompanying his 1985 Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way ... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."[65] In 1974, Dylan, with the Band, embarked on his first concert tour since his 1966 world tour. From the first show of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour on January 3, 1974, in Chicago, the shows featured what Heylin described as a "Hendrixized" version of "All Along the Watchtower".[66][12] From the first live performance, Dylan has consistently performed the song closer to Hendrix's version than to his own original recording.[12]
When Neil and Springsteen and Clapton do Watchtower in their bands, they all cover Jimi's version. heh
I stick about as closely as I can to the melodies on standards because they are so beautiful, but Billie Holiday (as good a singer of standards as any) bends them, and yet you hardly think of it when you hear her.
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
I clicked on your link, Doug, and I loved it! That led me to her versions (studio and live) of "I Can See Clearly Now." Oh that live version (with a richer accompaniment) just slays me!
Never heard of her before, but now I'm a Holly Cole fan and will seek out more of her.
I have most of the Holly stuff. She never touched that studio cover of I can see clearly now.
She did a whole album of Tom Waits songs with upright+piano….audiophile SACD mastering of that….I mean…what an amazing sounding album. Waits’ songs are what they are, which is not generally my fave…but….she did a nice version of a Beatles tune when she tried to make the Jump to pop/rock in the late 90s….I Just Saw a Face maybe?
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 55728
Loc: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ...
Yes on all counts, pop. I do think her album Blame it On My Youth (which oddly enough doesn't contain that title song though another album did) is a masterpiece through and through. Not one false move. Her cover of I'm Calling You from Baghdad Cafe should be mandatory listening for all singers.
And she did it all with just a very sympathetic pianist/arranger and upright bassist, nothing else on most songs.
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 55728
Loc: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ...
Hahaha! Same sweet lyrics about an infatuation but she turns into a disturbing peek at obsession. Mind you, if all if her songs were like that I’d have no interest. But trust me and listen to this one:
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
Originally Posted By: Andy McClelland
If musicians never played freely with melodies, changes, grooves etc, jazz would probably not exist.
I am in full agreement. I love hearing totally fresh whacked-out takes on covers. I love being shown surprising aspects of songs that take you somewhere you never imagined! I love to do it myself with other people's songs! (I even like doing whacked out versions of songs I wrote and recorded myself 20-30 years ago!)
But when I change somebody's chords, melody, or lyrics, I don't kid myself that I'm "honoring" the song or songwriter. No way. More accurately, I'm letting go of what was done before. Unconsciously telling the original artist or songwriter, "Thank you for bringing us this far, but it's time for you to sit down, because I'm driving the bus now. I got this from here..."
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 55728
Loc: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ...
Everybody’s got their own point if view. But I think that’s really the wrong way to look at it. You can keep repeating yourself, but that’s what jazz is, that’s what arranging is. You don’t just re-create what the original artist did. what’s the point?
Why not use this as a learning opportunity? there are some professional arrangers and really talented people telling you there’s a wide range reinterpreting a song. Just telling us we are wrong definitely doesn’t make us wrong.
Yes, you can definitely change chords, and you can change rhythmic figures you can change time signatures. Here is taxman in 7/4. we are not playing the exact same chord, nor are we playing the exact same melody.
This is a creative reinterpretation of the song. It happens to be simple enough so that even non-musicians might eventually recognize it. That doesn’t mean that all reinterpretations have to be simple. Specifically, if they are too far out for you to recognize it, but the arranger can point out how it does honor the original song, why not just go with that?
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
That was a tasty jam on the Taxman theme, brother! Many climaxes! We used to jam for 45 minutes on a motif like that in my band Brother's Keeper. You would have fit into our band real fine.
But I don't think most folks would have a clue what song you're covering if that guitar player didn't come in with the real melody once in a while. So I don't think that's "honoring" the song, not if people can't even recognize it.
But it's great! So who cares whether it's honoring the song or songwriter?
Doug, you do realize I never said that it was wrong to change a song's chords, or that it was wrong to change the melody, or wrong to do anything at all. Right? All my life I've encouraged people to exercise their creativity.
You and I are merely arguing the meaning of the word "honoring". You believe that merely by doing a song that you are honoring it. That's okay. Cool.
And I believe honoring a song means digging deeper into what the songwriter was trying to say, using means at my disposal which weren't available to the songwriter back then.
It's okay to disagree about the meaning of one little word and still be friends, isn't it?
And yet I'm in total agreement about the notion ~ practically no cover holds a candle to the original ~ especially Beatle covers.
And I live with that, willfully holding myself to that same scrutiny.
It's always been my notion that if anyone does a cover (including myself)...they'd need to be pretty convincing.
I know many put their own flavor on a cover, and that's fine. It's easily evident... if an artist is doing his own thing...when you can tell he's earned his wares, he 'already' knows how to nail it...in that respect, bravo to an excellent cover... as opposed to the player who hides his unmistakable lack of homework with 'mach show'. I've seen this played out on stage all to often.
And there are players like myself, and if I may mention ~ Myke (whose countless Beatle covers I've enjoyed)... while I personally hold The Beatles' catalog as sacred...untouchable...(I hope Myke is in agreement)... in the same breath I have an unquenchable desire to honor The Fab Four with my diligently limited efforts, my personal tributes...to the greatest band the world will ever know...
The Beatles
Even today, I'm taken back to my teen years of putting in sleepless hours of learning every nuance of the songs which has become the soundtrack of my life.
Having learned the guitar and piano by ear, quite often I would learn a song in my head without having played it on an instrument. That became the easy part. That was the 12 year old me discovering the math in music.
Since then I've always put it upon myself that if I can't make a decent cover...every part, every vocal, every instrument...then I'm not worthy of doing it all.
When I uploaded my cover of Golden Slumbers on The Planet I was immediately slanted by a few planeteers as having simply added my vocals to prerecorded music that I pulled off the shelf. I didn't know if I should've taken it as an insult or a compliment. Anyway...never would I ever use anything but my own meager talent to create a cover! And besides, it wasn't all THAT great in the first place.
That being said ~ to each their own.
That's just me and the personal demands I put upon myself.
I have a decent vst catalog at the ready with a near limitless variety of sound, and the patience to dissect a song to the 'nth degree.
I own Hal Leonard's 'The Beatles Complete Scores', really the only songbook you'll ever need. 1,200 pages of every part of every instrument, every vocal, etc. I'll often drop songs to half-speed to catch detail.
I'm also just getting into STEM SEPARATION in order to get down to the DNA of a part.
I only wish I still had my 20 year old voice with those many years still ahead.
I haven't uploaded anything in a while, but after reading that C Jo was planning on a new computer, for me, the same has been a long time coming. So out with the old, in with the new.
I just turned 72. Going on 3 years in remission. I miss Kevin my wife, every day.
Covering The Beatles was what I did in the beginning, before life and the real world happened.
Covering The Beatles is what I'll be doing till the very end.
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
Originally Posted By: HARDDRlVER
(1)It's always been my notion that if anyone does a cover (including myself)...they'd need to be pretty convincing... I've always put it upon myself that if I can't make a decent cover...every part, every vocal, every instrument...then I'm not worthy of doing it all.
(2) When I uploaded my cover of Golden Slumbers on The Planet I was immediately slanted by a few planeteers as having simply added my vocals to prerecorded music that I pulled off the shelf. I didn't know if I should've taken it as an insult or a compliment.
(3) I only wish I still had my 20 year old voice with those many years still ahead.
(4)I just turned 72. Going on 3 years in remission. I miss Kevin my wife, every day.
Joni -- (just my two synths -- LOL), I really enjoyed your post! I selected the portions I'd like to comment on, and numbered them to be clear what I'm referring to...
(1) I'm in total agreement. Why clone a cover, why do it all, if your version doesn't add something not there in the original?
(2) I fully expect that to happen to me when I post stuff here. Some will say, "You didn't do all that!" Because they won't be able to accept that someone could.
(3) I would love to have the voice I had at 30 or 40, rather than 20, because at age 20 I hadn't yet learned all the vocal techniques necessary to be a good rock singer. I'm 68 and didn't start losing high notes until a few years ago. My vocal limitations are the only thing preventing me from doing a lot more covers.
I wish my voice had the grit and growl of Gregg Allman, but it doesn't. My vocals sound like a white man. And I'm unable to scream with the intensity that both Lennon and McCartney taught themselves to do... like on Twist and Shout? Hey Jude? Those vocal restrictions seriously restrict my choices of which covers I'm able to convincingly pull off.
(4) Congratulations on the remission! I think I'm on the road back to health myself!
Haven't noticed your name here before, Joni, but I'm new 'round these parts. I hope to converse with you more.
I like to cover band songs on solo acoustic. I like to reduce it to my voice and my guitar, and it will certainly sound like me, I don’t need to try to make that happen. Just the reduction down to my wood guitar and scratchy voice will make it not even close to a clone. And I love to hear how songs hold in that context.
Though I always want to know the exact chords, the exact melody. I will almost always put the song in a different key than the original, the key I sing it best usually placing the song’s highest note at about D.
I don’t think to myself what am I bringing that’s different. It’s different right out the gate. I would pick a song because it makes me feel to sing it.
Will I record these?
Yes. Often covers of these fantastic songs compel me more than my own music. Or they kind of have become a major facet of my own music. It’s a big part of my music self. Huge. I like simple rich recordings of those.
There is a split in my music world:
there’s me making trippy new songs of my own with lots of percussion and fat bass lines and synth texture
And there’s me playing solo acoustic, and I do more covers than originals that way, but my covers are original.
I have mixed in some added tracks of rhythm and bass and such on a covers recordings, but I haven’t gone very far with that and not sure if I will.
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 55728
Loc: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ...
That’s another reason why the whole conversation of honoring the song gets so silly. You take a song with vocals and you do an instrumental version of it. is that honoring the intention of the lyricist?
And vice versa if you heard the version of “Walts for Debbie” a jazz classic by Bill Evans, featuring Bill Evans with Tony Bennett, singing lyrics, and then the original version with no lyrics at all, you might think something was missing. But in the song existed for at least a decade and a half before the lyrics were added.
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
You recall the instrumental "Sleep Walk" by Santo and Johnny? I've been working on lyrics for that song on-and-off for 20 years, and I'm still only two-thirds done.
I also wrote modern masculine lyrics to "My Favorite Things" that any country singer would be proud to sing instead of singing about "whiskers on kittens" and "bright copper kettles."
I did that as a songwriting exercise to learn to write lyrics on the level of Hammerstein, and I'm satisfied that I succeeded. Though, for me, lyrics are always the biggest struggle of the songwriting process. The music usually pours out of me, no problem.
On the flip side, I wrote music to a few classic poems to learn how to write music. I have made killer songs out of a few Robert Frost poems. I also wrote music to one Shakespeare poem, which was difficult as hell.
I've also been looking at Mancini's "Experiment in Terror," wondering if there was any possible way to put lyrics to it. So far I'm stumped. But I have a damn fine rock arrangement for it...
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
Anyone else here ever try to write new lyrics to an already existing song? Or write new music to already existing words?
Man, what a great learning technique!
In the beginning of my songwriting "career" (ha-ha!) I took a country song and wrote completely new words to it. Put it in the drawer for a couple years. When I came back to it, I wrote completely new music to go with my lyrics.
I got a great song out of it! I remember my song quite well, because it's still a great country song in the Garth Brooks vein. But I don't remember which song I borrowed from to get started...
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
Originally Posted By: Andy McClelland
And then there's "Little Help From My Friends". Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 did a wonderful version with some chord changes and a totally different groove.
I love ALL the Beatles covers by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66. Their lead singer, Lani Hall, was one of a select few women who give me an erection just listening to her voice... In fact, at the moment I can't think of any other voice that effects me that way... Herb Alpert must have felt the same way, cos he married her.
