There must be some kind of way out of here

[venta]

Well, today NME has published a chart of the "best cover versions of all time".

It's here: http://www.nme.com/news/muse/53090

Virtually none of them meet my criteria for a good cover. In particular, I don't believe that most people will have had any idea that the songs were covers when they first heard them. If someone had to tell you the song you know is a cover, it doesn't count.


[Poll #1622076]

Other reasons why the NME is wrong: in their corresponding chart of the worst cover versions ever, Madonna's American Pie only makes #8.

Edit The Beatles' song should of course be Twist and Shout. Search and replace error :)

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

AFAIK 'Hey Joe' is an arrangement of a traditional song, and therefore can't be counted as a cover. Of course, Hendrix may be basing it on someone else's arrangement, but as far as I'm concerned it's like saying that Simon & Garfunkel's version of Scarborough Fair is a cover.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm led to believe Scarborough Fair practically is a cover. Someone (this anecdote was better when I was told it, because the teller knew who) more or less wrote the song from a fragment of a traditional song - but owing to the snottiness in 1960s folk clubs about writing your own material, said it was traditional. Which meant they had no leg to stand on when Simon and Garfunkel recorded it!

I was thinking that I'd no idea what the original of Hey Joe might have been, so it makes sense that it's a traditional song.

[zotz]

If it's been all over the shop, then it's a standard rather than a cover.

Scarborough Fair's a surprisingly old song, and exists in lots of versions with lots of related pieces also. The same's true of St James' Infirmary, and probably many others too.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Ah, St James Infirmary - one of the syphilis ballads! Associated with the 'Sailor Cut Down In His Prime' / 'Streets of Laredo' songs.

[zotz]

You should read that article, if you haven't already. The Smithsonian disk of that family of songs is still available. I scraped it off emusic.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The whole "family of songs" concept is something I find endlessly fascinating. The other day I was reading about the evolution (http://www.planetslade.com/knoxville-girl1.html) of Knoxville Girl, and had on an LP I'd almost totally forgotten from childhood. It's called Young Hunting and is by the late, lamented Tony Rose. I was surprised to realise that the title song is basically exactly the same song as Nick Cave's Henry Lee.

I knew most of Cave's murder ballads were rooted in traditional songs, but it was still strange to have one suddenly jump out of a song I'd known as a kid.

[zotz]

Interesting. I'll have to chase that up - I've never heard it.

Stagger Lee's another recurring one, of course, and apparently based on a real argument. Over a hat.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The Knoxville Girl article I cited above comes from a very fine site which is well worth checking out for essays on a variety of topics. It has a history of Stagger Lee (http://www.planetslade.com/stagger-lee1.html), too. (Though it does have a typographically infuriating style of continuing side bars from page to page.)

I suspect Young Hunting is one of those albums which existed on vinyl in the seventies and hasn't since. I can sling you a low-quality mp3 taken from my parents' record, if you're interested.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

OH! Is that what they Oysterband song The Oxford Girl is about, then? I'd assumed it was about a more contemporary murder, but it makes sense in the context of the lyrics.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm ashamed to admit I don't actually know the Oysterband song.

Maybe oxfordgirl will come along and tell us :)

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Hmm....I've always wondered and just started hunting and found this - http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/riddleoxford1304.html

There is also mention here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl

Which seems to think the Oxford Girl is the ealiest version from which knoxville is derived !

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'll have to have a look when I have time - have bookmarked.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Having had a chance to read that now, I can also add that the bit about being 'wrapped in flannel/white linen' may well be a reference to the 18thC treatment of binding someone in wet cloth to ease the joint pain and fevers associated with advanced syphilis attacking the bones.

[zotz]

Good point. Hadn't occurred to me. Thank you.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Martin Carthy is quite clear that S&G ripped off his arrangement, but seems merely amused by that now.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

There are two interesting versions on Empire & Love by The Imagined Village - but that is, after all, a Carthy project.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

S&G's version relies heavily on the arrangement written by Martin Carthy, but a) he always said it was traditional, and fell out with them about it and b) they did deserve a copyright credit because of the Canticle part of their recording, which makes it hard to untangle SF from the rest of the track. It exists in recognisable form in the 19th century, though, so I'm not sure who is being credited with rewriting it in your half-anecdote. I'd like to know more!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, if Will happens by here he might tell us more!

He led me to understand that Martin Carthy's arrangement differend quite substantially from anything which existed formerly. He may have been wrong or I may have misunderstood, though!

Martin Carthy and Scarborough Fair

[(Anonymous)]

The fashion at the time was to introduce material as traditional. Martin's version of Scarborough Fair was, I have been told by those who knew him at the time, either re-written from bits of other versions or fragments, or the melody and arrangements are entirely Carthy's own, no tune having been documented with the extant lyrics. In either case, when Paul Simon learned the song from Martin Carthy (I believe at a club in the West Country, possibly in Somerset, rather than London), and subsequently recorded it Martin felt that for Simon and Garfunkel to copyright it as their own was more than a little cheeky. If the lyrics are traditional, and the arrangement Carthy's, then those facts should have been made clear on Simon and Garfunkel's copyright claim.

There is another point to this. After the song had been copyrighted, including the arrangement, there would have been a risk of Martin Carthy being liable to pay royalties to Paul Simon for every occasion on which he, Carthy, sang the song. In fairness this would have been more likely due to unscrupulous lawyers, rather than Paul Simon himself. There have been other instances where individuals have copyrighted in their own name collaborative work they have done with others. Where money is involved this prevents other participants in the work benefitting financially, in addition to them getting no credit for their creative input.

Martin Carthy and Scarborough Fair

[(Anonymous)]

The fashion at the time was to introduce material as traditional. Martin's version of Scarborough Fair was, I have been told by those who knew him at the time, either re-written from bits of other versions or fragments, or the melody and arrangements are entirely Carthy's own, no tune having been documented with the extant lyrics. In either case, when Paul Simon learned the song from Martin Carthy (I believe at a club in the West Country, possibly in Somerset, rather than London), and subsequently recorded it Martin felt that for Simon and Garfunkel to copyright it as their own was more than a little cheeky. If the lyrics are traditional, and the arrangement Carthy's, then those facts should have been made clear on Simon and Garfunkel's copyright claim.

There is another point to this. After the song had been copyrighted, including the arrangement, there would have been a risk of Martin Carthy being liable to pay royalties to Paul Simon for every occasion on which he, Carthy, sang the song. In fairness this would have been more likely due to unscrupulous lawyers, rather than Paul Simon himself. There have been other instances where individuals have copyrighted in their own name collaborative work they have done with others. Where money is involved this prevents other participants in the work benefitting financially, in addition to them getting no credit for their creative input.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

There's versions of the riddle elements going back to about the seventeenth/eighteenth century at least. It's possible that the refrain was added or borrowed from another song, though.

(If I was at home I could dig out my English Book of Penguin Folksongs, Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes and Child's Ballad Book to answer this more fully.)

Update: OK, home now with time on my hands!
Leache's Ballad Book suggests two sources: a 17thC broadside called 'The Elphin Knight', which has the chorus 'Blaw wind blaw/ the wind hath blaw my plaid awa' which contains many of the same riddles, though differently phrased (e.g. "It's you maun mak a sark for me /without any cut or seam, quoth he"). The second was collected in America in the 19thC and has the more familiar riddle lyrics (e.g. "Can you wash it in yonder well / where water ne'er ran or rain ever fell") and a nonsense chorus ("teaslum teaslum templum / fluma luma lokey sloomy") which MAY be Gaelic in origin.

Now, it's pretty obvious from the metre that the 17C version (let's call it A) can't be sung to anything like the tune of Scarborough Fair. However, the 19thC version (B) definitely can. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the song we now know as Scarborough Fair was written as a broadside ballad in 17thC, drawing on a rich tradition of English riddle lyrics dating back to at least 9thC, and that it was given a then-fashionable Scottish/Jacobite flavour with the business about plaids. It was then picked up in Scotland and/or Ireland and conflated with an existing tune and Gaelic chorus, and went to America to become version B - and may have survived in the UK also - with the chorus degenerated to gibberish. Someone (possibly Carthy) collected it, added the framing narrative about visiting the true love in Scarborough, and 'made sense of' the now nonsense chorus.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late 1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band, The Leaves which predates Hendrix, so IMO Hendrix's version is 'not the original'. Whether it's also 'a cover' is another issue, but I don't think you can successfully argue for his version being the original.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't imagine valkyriekaren was arguing that Hendrix's version was the original. The concept of "cover" just doesn't exist with a traditional song, so Hendrix's version can't be considered a cover if the song is traditional.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

No, but then you can legitimately answer the question, at least. I know the traditional folk song, and I know his version, and they are two distinct versions, ergo the traditional is the original, and any other version must be 'the cover' for the purposes of the question. No?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, not really. I mean yes, for the purposes of the question Hendrix's version is clearly "the cover", but my argument is that it shouldn't be appearing in the list at all, because it's merely an evolving version of a standard. Not a cover.