Cover songs

 Can't really bring myself to write much of anything today.  It's Wednesday, and I've got the midweek blues.  Still, I know I won't be able to write anything tomorrow, as my day is pretty jam packed, and it would kind of defeat the purpose of this whole exercise if I let four days go by between posts.  It's supposed to be a daily thing, or as close to it as I can manage, and I do have a little bit of time, just not a whole lot of get up and go!

So, what to talk about?  

As I'm writing this, I'm listening to an Eric Clapton album called Behind The Sun.  Literally just finished a song called "Knock On Wood."  Not the Dooley Wilson version from the movie Casablanca, but the version that became a disco hit in the 1970s.  

I've always found it interesting to listen to different artists' interpretations of songs.  They can often be quite disparate, sometimes stretching and twisting songs until they're almost unrecognizable, other times just adapting the song to their respective genres.

For instance, here's Led Zeppelin's original 1971 version of "Stairway To Heaven":

And here's one of my guilty pleasures, a bluegrass version done by Dolly Parton in 2002:

There are also ironic takes on songs.  For instance, here's the famous 1798 version of "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor ... :

... followed by a slowed-down, laid-back version by Cake, from 1996:

Then there are artists who transcend songs and make them their own.  Johnny Cash spent the majority of his final decade making cover songs (in collaboration with Rick Rubin) that put his own distinctive spin on them.  All of them are worth listening, but one of the most moving is his version of "Hurt".  

Originally recorded by Nine Inch Nails in 1994, it's an industrial rock song about being depressed and into self-harm and addiction:

Cash took that song in 2002, at the age of 70, and turned it into a lament from a dying man, filled with pain, suffering and regret, yet totally different from the original:

There are so many more different cover songs done by different artists, and they're all fascinating to listen to.  I'm done for today, though.  This "article" was just to pass the time, try to write something (if anything), perhaps share some good music, and also to play around with the settings for this blog (I've been exploring how to link things, hopefully it all turns out well).

I'll be back again on Friday with another blog.  Hopefully I'll have more energy to devote to actually writing something useful next time!  I'm thinking of trying my hand at automatic fiction, so if anybody reading this wants to suggest anything (subject, word to use, genre, etc), please let me know, and I will take that hour (or more) to crank something out, just for you!

Bye for now!