Beat Happening – Indian Summer
Not too long ago, Brandon mentioned that standards (an esteemed song, sung by many different singers over time) don’t play as big a part in pop music as they used to; but in the indie/alt/whateveryouwannacallit world, there are certain songs that for one reason or another seem to have taken on a similar life – they get covered a lot, AND a lot of those covers are fairly good, which says something about the underlying song.
One is “Indian Summer” by lo-fi pop primitivists Beat Happening.
Up top is the original. Its simplicity makes it a tough song to mess up; that VU-ish two-chord drone and childlike melody lend themselves to many versions (often by singers whose vocal stylings are less-divisive than Calvin Johnson’s artless stentorian baritone).
For example, from VU-enthusiasts Luna:
Luna – Indian Summer
And Eugenius/Captain America, which featured members of the Beat-Happening-simpatico Vaselines:
Eugenius/Captain America – Indian Summer
And R.E.M:
R.E.M. – Indian Summer
And Spacemen 3 co-founder Sonic Boom, in his Spectrum guise:
Spectrum – Indian Summer
And Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, whose clear boyish tenor suits the song’s nostalgic teen themes well:
Ben Gibbard – Indian Summer
And Italian dream-poppers Be Forest:
Be Forest – Indian Summer
And a fuzzed-out noisepop version from C86-fetishists the Manhattan Love Suicides:
The Manhattan Love Suicides – Indian Summer
There’s a couple other songs I can think of that have achieved similar status, but we’ll save ’em for another post.
How many artists have covered “Sundown”? Or “Tangled Up In Blue”? Or “Landslide”?Report
Four.Report
-ty two.Report
More seriously, I dunno. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of covers of the first two, and on the third the only ones I’m coming up with are Smashing Pumpkins & Dixie Chicks.
But this could be selection bias – in the scene I refer to, I’m familiar with it, and I’ve noticed this song pop up A LOT. When you look on YouTube for covers of those other songs, do you find a lot of other well-known artists covering them (for the purposes of this exercise, you kind of have to discount all the amateurs doing their own webcam versions, since those exist for any song)?Report
You’ve never heard a studio cover of Sundown?Report
Nope. When I look on Wikipedia for the song, the only listed name covering it I recognize is Toby Keith.Report
The Elwood cover got a lot of play. The others you’d probably have to listen to country radio to hear.Report
It looks like “Landslide” has been covered a few times.
A lot of early rock, 50s/60s/70s R&B/Soul/Funk songs, and reggae songs (particularly Bob Marley songs) seem to be like standards. And I think even more artists cover such things live.
“Redemption Song,” say.Report
I can tell you “Sweet Jane” gets covered a lot live, though I can only think of a couple studio covers. I suspect it gets covered for similar reasons as “Indian Summer” does – if a song only has two chords and they are good ones, it’s easy to let’er rip.Report
I looked up the most covered songs, and got a bunch of Beatles tunes, “Summertime” (which is my favorite to cover in the shower, singing and/or whistling, in case you’re interested), a “Over the Rainbow,” and “The Look of Love.” I dunno how accurate the list is, though.Report
“The Look of Love”?!
(The Look, The Look)?
https://youtu.be/LbBgNZ-zvBMReport
(Yes, I know it’s a different one. But unfortunately, due to my age, just SAYING “The Look of Love” results in THIS^^^^^.)Report
I’ve been enjoying the heck of out of bands that cover contemporary (or contemporary-ish) songs in an old-fashioned style, such as The Puppini Sisters doing “Walk Like An Egyptian” or nearly everything by Scott Bradlee and Post-Modern Jukebox.
There’s always the Sex Pistols cover of “My Way”.Report