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Bruce covered

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I played this tonight. Its one of my favourite Bruce Springsteen songs, performed by two of my favourite singers. its a mark of Springsteen’s quality as a songwriter that so many very different artists have covered so many of his songs. Your best examples of Bruce cover versions please…

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  2. Martin Joseph’s album of covers is a mixed bag. Some are simply acoustic versions, some genuinely breathe new life into what you thought were by-the-numbers Springsteen tracks

  9. The Thea Cover Me was on a CD of Springsteen covers with Uncut (or possibly Mojo) which opened up Springsteen’s appeal to me. I still don’t enjoy his own recordings much, but I like some of the songs much better when sung by others.

    • It was Uncut. There were two different cover CDs for the same month.

      Uncut did that quite a lot at about that time – there were two Rolling Stones cover CDs and three REM Selects… (Michael Stipe’s, Peter Buck’s and Mike Mills’): a circulation booster aimed at completists (otherwise known as “men”?).

      I seem to recall there was a Happy Birthday Bob Dylan set at one time, but I had stopped buying Uncut regularly at that point because almost every month was “Music That Inspired the {whatnots}” when they could put out a load of old (and, I suppose, out of copyright) blues tracks.

      I now have a subscription again and (most months) I enjoy the Best of the Month CDs.

      • And, how many of us, faithfully and faithlessly, purchased both/all editions to get both/all CDs?
        Yes sir, please sir, me, me, me. Probably started me on my course to intrepid would-be covers completist
        Cover discs were good then.
        The current Unshod best of new music trope (as in Words best of the cheap music we can afford) is rarely a pointer to owt I haven’t already got on my list. And the Boho roots of/inspired(? expired of, more often) series pall, even when they occasionally have a budget to commission a cover version LP track by track, as the participants are mainly so arcane and odd. (And, 9 times out of 10, doesn’t Robyn Hitchcock have nothing better to do?)

  11. Here’s a rather obscure one:

    Cassell Webb covered “Reason to Believe” (the Bruce song, not the Tim Hardin song) on her album “Conversations Before Dawn”. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be on YouTube.

  18. And another, which I like much better than Springsteen did himself, refusing to allow it to be on the LP it was penned in for. (Spoiler: it does grate when he sings ‘lickle’……)

  25. The Beat Farmers, featuring Country Dick Montana on ‘vocals, drums and beer runs’. From their Tales of the New West album – some other great covers on there, and an album whose first side is exclusively in the key of G.

    • That’s great. Here’s another terrific version of the same song. interesting how many great female singers seem to be attracted to Springsteen’s songs (led by the magnificent Patti of course)

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