The beauty of a song is its limitless evolution. Think of the unlimited number of ways jazz or country standards can be interpreted.
Definitive versions of songs might be the ones that sell the most copies or reach the highest chart position. You hear something enough times, and familiarity tempts you to believe it must be good. It’s risen to the top of the heap.
Or, once you listen to the first recording, the original imprints a kind of decisiveness in your brain, making it hard to hear an alternative. Yet the three cover songs below are bigger than the originals. Sometimes the composer just needs the right players.
Since you been gone I can do whatever I want.
“I Love Rock ’n Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts from I Love Rock ’n’ Roll (1981)
In 1976, Joan Jett was touring in England with The Runaways when she first heard The Arrows perform “I Love Rock ’n Roll” on television. She recorded the song in 1979 with Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols, released as a B-side to her single “You Don’t Own Me.” Then Jett rerecorded the song with the Blackhearts as the first single and title track to her second studio album. The Arrows’ song is Jett’s defining anthem and her version turns theirs into a basement demo by comparison.
“Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor from I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990)
It’s absurd to suggest anything beginning with Prince isn’t beyond argument. But that’s exactly what happened when Sinéad O’Connor recorded “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Prince wrote and recorded it for his side project The Family in 1985. Both the song and The Family’s only studio album received little attention. But O’Connor understood the song’s profound sadness and fury better than its writer. Against O’Connor’s turbulent life, “Nothing Compares 2 U” is more than a breakup ballad. It’s the lingering heartbreak from a broken relationship, romantic or otherwise; a lost loved one, and the emptiness no one and nothing can fill. There isn’t a music video that more simply or powerfully distills the emotions of a song than the close-up frames of O’Connor. The Irish voice breaking. Tears of sorrow and rage fall. While alive, she was a treasure. And the world, at times, couldn’t handle the uncomfortable truths she told.
“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley from Grace (1994)
A sigh begins Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” before he plucks notes from a ghostly Telecaster. Inside a reverb chamber, Buckley isn’t singing like an angel but instead a tortured soul begging for the existence of angels. Something to ease the pain. Anything. Leonard Cohen’s original has all the poetry and torture, but it does suffer a little from its schmaltzy production. Buckley’s young death certainly adds magic and mystery to what appears on his lone studio album Grace. But had he not drowned in Memphis, his version would still be the definitive one. You can’t teach or practice what his voice did. Though singing competition shows have tried their best to ruin this gorgeous song, listening to Buckley sing it resets the joyous rage and beauty wrapped inside Cohen’s fragile verses.
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Photo by Mick Hutson/Redferns
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