Wednesday!
There have been a handful of times where an artist/band covered a song by another artist/band and then, the other artist/band covered the first one.
Or there must be, right? Surely this happened a ton, right?
The only one that I can think of, though, is this one with Elbow and Peter Gabriel.
You may remember Elbow from such songs as “Mirrorball”. It’s a lovely little makeout song:
[Lyrics] Mirrorball - Elbow
![[Lyrics] Mirrorball - Elbow](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/jL_5wEJLHcE/0.jpg?resize=720%2C388&ssl=1)
Well, Peter Gabriel covered it and put his own twist on it:
Peter Gabriel - Mirrorball (HD)
Not to be outdone, Elbow took a little perfect song called “Mercy Street” off of Peter Gabriel’s great big perfect album So:
Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street
And returned the favor:
https://youtu.be/Ij7fvkFp66M
So… what are you listening to?
Bobby Darin mentions here how he recorded Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter,” and then Tim Hardin recorded his “Simple Song of Freedom.” Although I’m not sure it counts as a cover, since Tim Hardin was the first to record “Simple Song of Freedom.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1ohsissjEReport
Actually, Bobby Darin’s recording of “If I Were a Carpenter” was released before Tim Hardin’s, too. Strictly speaking, neither was a cover.Report
I keep thinking that there should be an example of Dolly Parton covering Whitney Houston or *SURELY* Trent Reznor covered something that Johnny Cash wrote or Bob Dylan sang “Are You Experienced” or something…
And I can’t find it.
Surely it’s because I’m ignorant of this sort of thing… but I can’t find any other examples and that strikes me as crazy because that’s something that ought to happen all the time!Report
Back in the 1990’s, I remember a friend asking if I’d ever heard of a band called Ednaswap, because they did a downbeat interpretation of that Natalie Imbruglia song that he wanted to track down again.Report
Yeah, when Big Yellow Taxi was covered by Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton came on the radio when I was driving with a buddy, he immediately yelled “THEY’RE COVERING AMY GRANT NOW?!?!?”
He was not kidding.
“How do you know he wasn’t kidding?”
“Dude. I know that he wasn’t kidding.”
In any case, it’d be cool if Ednaswap covered something by that Natalie Imbruglia and brought balance to the universe somehow.Report
Web search for reciprocal song covers turned up this.Report
For reasons known only to the ether, I don’t think I’m counting “songs that they play in concert, but never officially record”.
We can probably find plenty of examples of bands covering other bands in concert (and it being reciprocal) and neither band knowing that the other one did.
I’d like to think we could, anyway.
I’m just surprised that I can’t seem to dig up any official ones.Report
Here’s a twenty-pack.Report
PERFECT! Thank you!
Exactly what I was looking for!!!!Report
I’m guessing you’re excluding jazz, right? Because there you have dudes writing entire does to other composers collective work, then that ode gets covered and improvised by the initial composer, then the two work together and make a third piece that’s a reference to both. In pop music, a cool thing happened when Gnarles Barkley got a hit covering the Violent Femmes “Gone Daddy Gone”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbeiXZVWbM
and then the Femmes got back together and covered Barkley’s smash hit “Crazy”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-SMLTfuVw
with both covers being entirely consistent with the rest of that musicians work, such that I don’t even think most people realize “Gone Daddy Gone” is a cover (Crazy was so over-saturated that there’s basically no way not to recognize the lyrics).Report
Old guy here, Ian and Sylvia covered Gordon Lightfoot songs and vice versa. Those Canadians have to stick together. Even Neil Young covers Ian and Sylvia.
What I am listening to is a lot of Kate Wolf, (almost any song is good), and Devil Makes Three (Live at the amoeba is best).Report
Uhm, there is an Old ’97’s/Funland ep with both bands doing their own song, and then the other bands.
Here is a sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On8CV4TIwtsReport