Neil Diamond cover songs are, I think, my equivalent of “No, I haven’t read the book, but I’ve seen the Wishbone episode,” which makes loving me a very specific prospect. My favorite ex-girlfriend works at a record label and regularly hand-mails me (through the postal service!) CDs she thinks I’ll like and also things like bumper stickers promoting the 2005 release of a Pussycat Dolls album, which I also like. Anyhow, here is a list of songs I never heard until I heard Neil Diamond cover them, probably on Rainbow.
“Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell
Also the only Joni Mitchell song I have ever heard, unless you count “Paints and Brushes” from the background of that one 30 Rock episode!
“Suzanne,” Leonard Cohen
I love this song! I bet I would like other Leonard Cohen songs.
“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” I actually have no idea who originally did this
“Chelsea Morning,” Joni Mitchell
Wait, I guess I have heard two Joni Mitchell songs!!
I am not embarrassed to say I have a similar list in my head, of songs I’d never know word for word if it weren’t for Glee (seasons 1-3, come on now).
There’s definitely some stuff Glee introduced me to that I’m pleased about, like Rumors by Fleetwood Mac (I had heard some of the songs in passing but not the whole album).
And I didn’t know the Happy Days/Come on Get Happy duet by Streisand and Garland existed before Glee covered it, so there’s that.
Oh man. There is a Patti LuPone/Audra McDonald Get Happy that shatters me every time I hear it. YouTube has a couple versions, but this is the one that gets me.
I have a list of “songs I have liked and later discovered were Beatles covers that I still think are supremely better than the original Beatles versions” such as “Tomorrow Never Knows” by Our Lady Peace.
*whispers* I don’t care for the Beatles. I don’t hate them, but I’m not a fan. *hides*
Do not be afraid! I was, for a period of time, a truly obsessive Beatlemaniac, and I still like Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” better than the original.
Grew up in the 60s & I don’t really like them much, either. Though I do appreciate their impact on music.
This is how I learned of “Valerie,” and I still prefer the Glee version.
Naya Rivera is amazing.
Her version is based on the Amy Winehouse cover.
Is that Steve Winwood’s “Valerie”? or a different song altogether? (goes off to google)
Yeah, Glee was the first time I heard “Gold Digger” 🙁
Glee was the first time I heard “Red Solo Cup” and I totally thought it was a fake song they’d made up for the show.
Ditto. It sounds exactly like the “songs” Brittany kept writing.
And the worst part is that sometimes I sing along to the original when there are people around and I accidentally add a weird bit that’s just in the Glee version (like in the a cappella covers) and then my secret is out.
i see what you’ve said about joni mitchell up there and i refuse to respond to it
(blue is one of the few perfect albums in existence tho THIS IS NOT ME RESPONDING OKAY BYE)
“Blue” is one of those albums that they send you in the mail with samples of Tide, I’m kinda shocked when I find people who haven’t listened to it yet.
I’m sorry Mallory about the double post but I forgot: “Hissing Of Summer Lawns” is criminally underrated, and it reminds me very heavily of Steely Dan fronted by Joni. Check it out!
Yes yes yes yes yes, as someone raised by an obsessive lover of both, that is the exactly perfect comparison.
I am monocle-falling-out-of-my-eye level SHOCKED that Mallory doesn’t love Joni Mitchell. What is life
I’ve been tempted to list my religion on forms as Joni’s Heijira
I could play just Hejira for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.
Along with Ladies of the Canyon and Court and Spark, which are also perfect.
I WAS A FREE MAN IN PARIS I FELT UNFETTERED AND ALIVE
ok sorry I just love her so much
Blue forever and ever and ever amen (I am an atheist but I feel ok about using “amen” when referring to Blue).
actually the Ben Folds Five reference cancels out any actual religious connotation, so you’re good.
Look at this list of the people who have covered “Both Sides Now”. LOOK AT IT. Leonard Nimoy has covered it.
“Joni Mitchell taught your cold English wife how to feel.”
Tears, tears streaming down my face.
When I started collecting vinyl, I resolved only to collect albums that I desperately loved. So when I complete my collection I anticipate I may only have 25-30 records total.
I have three Joni Mitchell albums and am not opposed to buying more. That says it all.
pssst – Hissing of Summer Lawns is one of those Joni ones that grows on you like whoa, if it is not one you have already, of course.
Neil Diamond really wants us to listen to more Joni Mitchell, that’s the message I’m getting
I predict that Mallory is going to post a follow up to this called “Why didn’t anyone tell me Joni Mitchell was so good you guys are jerks”
Aww man I love Joni Mitchell. She seems like sassy broad in the best way. She did an interview with noted scum, Jian Gomeshi, before all the charges became public and you could feel her disdain for him seethe out at him through the interview. Which that is not particularly relevant, but that memory is seared into my brain for whatever reason. Every time he is discussed, I’m like “mmm hmmm, Joni knew something wasn’t right with him”
At Luminato that same year, which was honouring her for her 70th birthday, Joni pretty much said outright that something wasn’t right about him. She didn’t hide her disdain at all.
Yup. Here she is calling him out in Maclean’s:
“A: You know I did an interview with a CBC commentator. I exorcised the house after this guy left. I smudged it and opened all the windows. Now it comes out that he has been fired from CBC. People kept saying, “What a great interviewer.” I didn’t think so. After about the 20th one, I said, “What did you think was great about it?” That he couldn’t knock me over? They would look stunned when I said that. To me, his behaviour was overtly hostile.”
http://www.macleans.ca/society/the-interview-joni…
Yeah, I never liked him as an interviewer either, although I wasn’t tuned in enough to think there was something really wrong with him. I just thought he sounded like an asshole.
Oh yes, I didn’t mind him before I knew all the garbage crap he did. Like he wasn’t great, but I felt reasonably neutral about him.
But I do remember the interview Joni Mitchell and I definitely remember it being kind of hostile. Hostile isn’t quite the right word, but it was clear she did not care for him.
PBS’s “American Masters” on Joni Mitchell is A++++ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/joni-mitc…
Also, there is a hilarious anecdote about a very stoned Joni and Ahment Ertegun getting lost in the basement of a hotel trying to find the stage, that is straight out of (or possibly the inspiration for the scene in) “Spinal Tap”, in the Neil Young biography “Shakey” http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/shakey-neil-youngs-b…
I just want that Pussycat Dolls bumper sticker.
My Neil-loving dad would be proud of you!
“Neil-loving dad” aka ALL DADS.
Tho in my family, it’s my mom who loves him!
Me too! My dad was the rocker (Hendrix, Kinks, Stones, etc) my mom was the folkie/pop (Neil, Streisand, Joni)
haha, my dad HATES Neil Diamond for reasons still unexplained.
I should add that the only reason I know of this truly epic dislike is due to One (1) Uncomfortable Family Viewing of Saving Silverman, feat. my father, Neil Diamond-hater; My brother, aged maybe 15; and myself, aged 12
My grandmother, who spoke very little English, LOVED Neil Diamond. She thought he was “such a nice boy.”
I only know “Both Sides Now” through Dolly Parton’s cover.
Best life.
Mary Fahl, formerly of October Project, has a great cover too. Weird pauses, I admit, but otherwise I could swim in it.
As a Suzanne who hates that song, I’m appalled to find out there are more versions of it out there.
I also hates the song that has my name in it, I FEEL YOUR PAIN.
I ALSO hate a song that has my name in it, and it’s a much less common name so I get asked about it All. The. Time.
Nina Simone’s version is perfect, let the hate flow through you.
This is me, but with Jerry Garcia instead of Neil Diamond (and Bob Dylan instead of Joni Mitchell)
Beware with the Leonard Cohen – he is a poet, and if you can ignore the shitty production values that have plagued most of his career, good on you, but I am not that generous. Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), tho? A+, front to back, LOVE IT ALL, STICK IT TO MY VEINS.
Actually, Imma go listen to that right now.
Judy Collins sings a lot of Leonard Cohen songs and it is a beautiful thing.
There’s also a cover album, I’m Your Man, with lots of covers.
There are TWO cover albums! I’m Your Fan as well as I’m Your Man–both are good, I’m Your Fan is I think the one with the gorgeous John Cage Hallelujah.
Ahhh Songs of Leonard Cohen undoes me EVERY TIME I LOVE IT SO MUCH! So much that I had to respond to this like half a day after you posted it.
In a similar vein, I didn’t know that The Sundays were covering The Rolling Stones on “Wild Horses” and that seems shameful. (I’m 42! I know Rolling Stones songs!)
i love it when the sundays get brought up anywhere, because they were great.
I knew it was a Stones song, but I like the Sundays’ version better because Buffy feels
In my experience, covers are a great way to be introduced to Leonard Cohen’s music. See: Jonathan Coulton’s cover of Famous Blue Raincoat, everyone and their mother’s cover of Hallelujah.
I prefer Rufus Wainwright’s version of Chelsea Hotel no.2 to the original
I almost prefer Rufus’s Hallelujah. But then Buckley drags me back every time.
NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO COVER FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
HOW VERY DARE HE
“I love this song! I bet I would like other Leonard Cohen songs.”
I am somewhat embarrassed to tell you all that I pretty much only enjoy *covers* of Leonard Cohen songs. I deeply appreciate that he is a strong enough songwriter that someone like Jeff Buckley could transform Hallelujah into something i experience as a-may-zing, but I just can’t listen to an original recording of a Cohen song and hear it myself.
I feel the same way.
Thirded.
JEFF BUCKLEY HALLELUJAH. It’s one of those songs/recordings that has transitioned (for me) from mere song to holy hymn.
but the kd lang version tho
but then there are covers of neil diamond that are baffling. the older crowd here might only remember Red Red Wine as a song by UB40, but one day when i was at karaoke and happened to see the credit, it was to neil diamond. i looked it up and, it’s actually the sad drinking song he intended.
YES! i also discovered he wrote The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” and “Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon” (by whomever sang it in Pulp Fiction) only after the fact. talented guy, that neil.
I think it was Urge Overkill.
Red, Red Wine has such delicious remnants of Neil’s earlier attempts to be a country singer. I love just the slight twang.
WHAT?! There should be a word for a special kind of surprise one experiences when finding out a song was a cover and that the original was really different and by someone famous. Like a thousand years ago when I heard Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” after Whitney Houston.
The feeling of surprise is different than other kinds of surprises.
I was deeply into the UB40 version. That and Can’t Help Falling in Love. My mother spent my adolescent years being appalled with me and my choices.
Music related so hopefully not too OT:
Do you folks know Melanie Safka at all? I love her, she’s bananas, this cover with MILEY FRIGGIN CYRUS is actually really lovely, and this song would be a good Toastie anthem because of the line “I wish I could find a good book to live in”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX9A5vv-jOM
In other news, I’m pretty meh about Neil Diamond but Joni Mitchell is a treasure.
my mom loved Melanie and it is the Music of My Youth (is I Don’t Eat Animals why I’m a vegetarian? maybe. idk)
Also that Miley cover kinda got me into Miley. So so good. And her version of Jolene!
My mum is also the reason I know Melanie! And baha, that song is Peak Melanie Zaniness – I love when she got weird (which was often). Also yay vegetarianism, I need to find my way back– I was one for sevenish years but am now lapsed.
RIGHT?! LIKING MILEY CYRUS IS A NEW SENSATION FOR ME. Her voice is really good, and based on what covers she put up it seems like she actually has excellent taste. Her Jolene slayyyyed
I love Melanie’s version of James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind.”
Oh man, was Jane Krakowski’s mother Verna based on Melanie Safka? They are styled strikingly similarly.
Hahaha oh man, I can see it!
I mean realistically I KNEW that I was unlikely to be Mallory’s favourite ex-girlfriend, given that we’ve never dated, or indeed met, but seeing it confirmed in black and white like that was still brutal.
See also: me and The Protomen’s 80s cover album “The Cover Up.” How had I never heard: “Because the Night”, “In the Air Tonight”, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart”?
I don’t really know or care; I just want to listen to the Protomen, who are very good at songs.
You will probably like other Leonard Cohen songs, but if you’re like me, you’ll hate the way he sings his own material. I made a playlist a while back to address this.
Songs of Leonard Cohen (As Sung By Anyone Except Leonard Cohen)
Oh, bless you and all your kin.
thank you for your service to humanity
This is GREAT. I love Leonard Cohen with all my heart, but my love is not blind and I recognize that he is not always the best choice for singing his material.
“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” was originally done by the Hollies. The title came from Boys Town, where there was a statue of a boy carrying a smaller boy.
Mine is the Pet Shop Boys. No one can tell me that Always On My Mind isn’t a big disco number.
I LOVE that cover. Best.
Señor Negroni has now gotten to the point where he’s figured out any time I ask him “do you know who wrote this song?” the answer will ALWAYS be Willie Nelson.
It’s so great! I definitely prefer it to the original.
“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” was originally done by the Hollies. The title comes from Boys Town, where it was used on a statue of a young boy carrying a smaller one.
I had a similar experience with Mad magazine’s spoofs on movies when I was a kid. Too young to watch The Godfather, but I knew many of the iconic scenes from this source.
I bet that’s happened an awful with The Simpsons.
Yes! There are several movies from the 70s and early 80s that I don’t feel I need to see because I read the Mad Magazine version. Kramer vs Kramer. The Shining. Some movie with William Hurt. Etc.
Yes! There are several movies from the 70s and early 80s that I don't feel I need to see because I read the Mad Magazine version. Kramer vs Kramer. The Shining. Some movie with William Hurt. Etc.
That is nuts that you don’t know those songs, they are all pretty iconic classic hits, I know I’m old and all, but yeesh. Anyway there’s a sort of flip side category of songs you may not know were written by Neil Diamond and only know because of the hit cover versions by others, like I’m a Believer by the Monkees, and Red Red Wine by UB40.
Around the age of 10, my siblings and I realised you could do this with a lot of Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys/NSync songs. They fit each other so well!
Must put in a word for those of us who have loved Leonard Cohen – and his performance on recordings and live- for half a century. He’s the one and only, a living legend, constantly evolving in his poetry and his voice. Amen
You would indeed like more songs by Leonard Cohen and you should seek them out immediately.