Motherfucking Covers

Yeah, I know. “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Yesterday” are great fucking songs. That doesn’t mean that you should think of recording them with your shitty little garage band. As a matter of fact, that doesn’t mean that there is a reason for anyone else to record them, period. If I want to hear “Sweet Home Alabama” or “Yesterday” I will just fucking play those original songs. Who the hell needs Bella and the Hell’s Bells to cover them for me? The songs worked just fucking fine the first time around.

But still…

We are plagued with motherfucking covers. It’s a musical disease. It’s one thing if you’re about to fall off your fucking bar stool at Grizzlie’s Pub as some pot-bellied trucker band with cheap instruments plays “Freebird” over and over until you actually think you’re in the fucking Delta of Mississippi, hog-fucking some alligator. It kinda comes with the territory. But when I spend hard earned cash on a CD and get some pointless gay ass cover song at the end of the disc, I just wanna climb a tower with a scope rifle.

I know. This is confusing, because you like covers. You like to “sing along”. You’re dumb as fuck and obviously need this laid out for you. Ssshhh… Fear not. Uncle Beppo is here to set you straight (as difficult as that may be in some of your cases – gay people hate me). Just don’t cry. I fucking hate it when people cry. Pisses me off.

Covers… You can do them either of two ways:

1.The right way – Make it your own motherfucking song. OR

2.The wrong way – Play the original from start to finish without any personal fucking touches whatsoever.

The right way... If you make it your own fucking song then it can serve to showcase that you are fucking versatile, yet still unique enough to seamlessly incorporate another artist’s song into your own sound. Cool. Queensryche were really good at this. Check out Dalbello’s “Gonna Get Close to You” on “Rage for Order”, or Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” off the remastered version of “Empire”. They could both have been original Queensryche songs, and they are still not the obvious cover choices for that fucking band. That’s what makes a great cover. (Nevermind that the band couldn’t write a decent song these days even if they held a gun to DeGarmo’s fucking head. They really went down the fucking drain after he left, even more so than on "Promised Land".)

Some bands cover a song so well that it actually, without any contest whatsoever, becomes their motherfucking song. Van Halen has more rights to “You Really Got Me” than the fucking Kinks ever did. It makes me foam at the mouth to hear the original on the radio these days, in a bad way, as I am just waiting for the damn guitar solo that never comes. Most people think Thin Lizzy wrote “Whiskey in the Jar” because it’s a fucking Lizzy Song! Right? Never mind the old fiddler on some Irish roof who wrote the shit hundreds of years ago, drunk off his ass. It’s fucking Thin Lizzy’s song now. Metallica covered the Thin Lizzy version of “Whiskey in the Jar”, not the old traditional.

Gene Kelly performing “Singin’ In the Rain” is right as fucking rain, right? A timeless classic. It doesn’t matter that the song was over 20 years old at the time. It’s Kelly’s song. Ownage.

Who was first? Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan? Both recorded “All Along the Watchtower”, but most of you dumbasses don’t know which one is the original. That’s the beauty of the two versions. Both guys perform the song like it was their own. Both versions are The One Song.

Zakk Wylde’s cover of “Whiter Shade of Pale” and Johnny Cash doing Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” are excellent choices as well.  They both keep the main focus on the recording artist, while still paying respect to the original song.

Greatest fucking cover artist of all time was Elvis Presley. Half the shit he sang was somebody else’s, but the songs are still remembered as HIS. Elvis was the first Karaoke Super Star. Now there are Elvis Cover Artists, covering the songs he covered as if they were Elvis Originals. That’s a testament as good as any to the fact that this guy could sing you the McDonald’s menu and it would have been a classic Elvis Hit. Are you confused yet? Stay with me, kids. It’s not like we’re transplanting a brain into a rocket here. The motherfucking King. Even during his last coked out bloodhound cheeked karate clown days he still sang his ass off, looking like an Italian New Jersey housewife with all the fucking bling-bling.

Then we have The Wrong Way to do it.

I never really fucking understood why some creatively challenged motherfuckers have to play the A to Z of some known song by the numbers. What’s the fucking point, I mean… Wait. I just said it, didn't I? Motherfucking “creatively challenged”. It should serve as a death warrant for a band to not properly cover a song. If you can’t make a “real” song your own, then you don’t have a unique fucking sound to begin with. And tell me, motherfucking please, if you don’t have a unique sound to begin with, then why in the hell of everything unholy should I waste my time with you, if you don’t bring that shiny object along to fuel my ADD?

So many artists just add a song as a “tribute” to their idols. Ever heard of liner notes, motherfucker? Just say “Thanks to motherfucking Roy Orbison for all the inspiration”. Doesn’t mean you have to play his shit on your CD. As far as tributes go, you covering his song will probably make him have a post-mortal epileptic fit in his fucking coffin. (They weren’t even that fucking good when he sang them, overrated motherfucker).

Any song just covered by the book will inevitably be compared to the original, weighed on the scales of ridicule, and in the end dismissed as a motherfucking no-talent waste of disc space.

Pop stars do this all the time, but that should come as no surprise as they are unoriginal fucks to begin with. Jessica Simpson doing a weak ass version of Robbie William’s sappy “Angels” is just the most pointless fucking thing I have ever heard. What’s next? Gwen Stefani covering “Don’t Cha”? Pointless. Pop stars… It’s even worse when they take on a rock song but are way too gay to pull it off. Sheryl Crow doing “Sweet Child of Mine” was fucking vomit inducing, much like Mariah Carey wailing to “Bringing on the Heartbreak”. Britney Spears doing Stones’ “Satisfaction” was as gay as Children of Bodom doing “Oops I Did It Again”. It can be done though: Lisa Loeb doing Slayer’s “Raining Blood” was kinda cool.

As far as Metal goes, there are very few occasions when it’s OK to cover songs. Metal usually has more integrity than other genres, and the bands pride themselves in being just that - motherfucking originals. Not much room for covers.

Live is another matter though. I always dug the fuck out of the way Dream Theater have “theme nights” live, every once in a while, and cover a whole album from beginning to end. They did Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” and a bunch of other stuff. All Dream Theater style, with a sense of respect and fucking humor. If only James La Brie could sing live, it would have been fucking dandy. I have seen the fucking band do everything from Zeppelin to Napalm Death, and they can pull anything off, more showcasing the fact that they are capable motherfuckers than actually trying to make a world of difference. It’s a fucking treat to see them live. Then again… Dream Theater fans are the fucking Trekkies of the Metal World.

In short: Wanna cover a song? Go and get drunk at “Karaoke Night” down at your local Chink Chow. Chances are you have no talent (don’t deny it) and nothing to say (since you wanted to do a cover to begin with). So when in doubt whether to record somebody else’s song, just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. The world is a much happier fucking place without you, and it won’t cost you any royalties either.

In closing… Here’s a tip for bands that are just dying to cover “Stairway to Heaven” or “Imagine”:

Don’t. Those songs are untouchable, and besides... I will fucking kill you.

Love,

Beppo – Climbing a tower near you soon.

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