Covers that are better than the Lennon and McCartney originsls
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Don’t know why my comments got lost!
I just wanted to say this version has always been a favourite of mine for over 60 years now. Much better than the dreary version on Please Please Me as sung by George
Wasn’t that the original?
The Billy J Kramer version was the hit in the UK, but it’s a definitely a L&Mc song.
I mean it was the first version. The Beatles version came later
A little overwrought perhaps, but still miles better than Ringo’ s twee effort.
The predictable choice. I disagree it’s better. The original is perfect in it’s context on the album. The bvs are wonderful. The Cocker version makes it into an overwrought late 60s hoary rocker, which is fine in it’s way, as a separate thing, but not better. One of the better covers though.
Predictable is my middle name.
Overwrought? More over the top, terrible.
Twee? Ringo’s finest (vocal) moment!
There are no cover versions of Beatles original songs that are an improvement on the Beatles version.
That is FACT.
Well you know what you can do with FACT @Baron-Harkonnen. Alison Krauss does the definitive version of I Will. Miles better.
More exciting than the original, no doubt.
Otis found out, he found out that it’s a crap version.
Not his greatest moment, true, but as a throw-away filler in a live performance Otis does more with an otherwise quite average pop song than L&Mc could have dreamed of. I’ve no doubt they would both have wholeheartedly approved of this version.
It’s a brilliant pop song
I reckon this one does the job and in half the time
Terrible, histrionics galore.
No
Covering The Long And Winding Road has a good chance of success. Great song, lovely McCartney vocal but little else going for it. Aretha owns it (and the bass player does a good job!).
Terrible, histrionics galore.
My comments on the above cover versions weren’t made off the cuff. I listened to each at least 3 times and the experience was simply te………
Try harder.
Aretha holds the distinction alongside The Rolling Stones (I think, unless anyone knows any different) of being the only artists to release a version of a Beatles’ song which the group themselves then released afterwards – Let It Be and I Wanna Be Your Man, respectively.
Might not be true, but there can’t be many others.
Hold that thought, got a third one: I Call Your Name – Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas.
My two favourites are the aforementioned I Wanna Be Your Man and The Hot Chocolate Band’s brilliant version of Give Peace A Chance.
Didn’t Joe Cocker release a version of Something first?
Couple of months later, I think.
Some covers came out on the same day as a Beatles’ album came out, but I’ve only got three examples of the cover pre-empting an eventually released song.
I think Kenny Lynch was the first person to record an L and M song, Misery (although it didn’t chart) the Beatles recorded it later for their first album.
Brilliant! Released a week before the first album and apparently the first Beatles’ song to be judged on Juke Box Jury. That’s four.
I’ve just looked up Kenny Lynch’s Misery and in one of those brilliant stats that can fall into your lap sometimes, Kenny’s discs either side of it both got to No. 10 in the charts while Misery, as stated above, did not chart.
Couldn’t have done the lads’ confidence much good!
‘Misery’ was originally written for Helen Shapiro, when the Beatles toured with her. Her management vetoed it however which is presumably why Kenny Lynch got to record it. Helen Shapiro actually had a hit in the USA two years before the Fabs. She got to exactly No. 100 with ‘Walkin’ Back To Happiness’ in the Billboard Hot 100.
Walkin back to happiness only got to no.100?
That is such a well known song to do virtually bugger all in terms of chart placing,
No. 1 in the UK
Kenny Lynch’s Misery, aka Jimmy Tarbuck.
The Wings versions of anything vaguely rocky were better. Does that count?
Eh?
I was really young when I first heard this. I didn’t know it was a Beatles song for quite a while. I still like Siouxsie’s version more.
I was just turned 13 when Dear Prudence came out, and I’d not heard the original (my Mum went off the Fab when “they went weird”). I still prefer it.
Yes, I’ll go with that too.
For the other thread featuring His Bobness, her version of Wheels on Fire might also be a contender.
Great version. Better than the original? Not for me. One of my favourite tracks on the White Album.
This for me is the obvious answer, but I guess it’ll cause a clash of generations, with the Boomers lining up behind the White album version and the Gen Xers on Team Siouxsie.
I think it’s far better than the original.
Are you referring to Helter Skelter or Dear Prudence?
Dear Prudence
I’d go with that. The cover of Dear Prudence is preferable to the original for me
It’s their biggest ever hit.
The Beatles’ version is one of thirty completely new songs that came out on the same day.
In the age-old “make the White Album a single LP” debate, it probably wouldn’t even make a lot of peoples’ 15. It wouldn’t make mine.
It would mine and is a well loved song amongst most fans
Almost any worthwhile writer on the subject would highlight this as one of the best on the album.
They would be “dodgers” presumably
Your recollection of what was a hit and what wasn’t is not your strongest talent, from what I remember 😉
You know, I had a feeling that this thread would turn out to be more argumentative than the Dylan cover thread! Ginger, get the popcorn!
It was inevitable as true believers can’t comprehend anything may be better than the Fabs.
*tin hat*
Indeed – further up-thread, the Baron states this as FACT!
I guess that’s thread over then!
Even John Lennon didn’t believe.
It’s definitely not better, but I rather like it anyway. It was my introduction to one of my favourite Beatles songs. Edit: just realised the thread is Lennon/McCartney but never mind.
Doesn’t say what the song is.
It’s all too much
That’s as may be – but what’s the song? (Boom-tish!)
I did edit my original post to acknowledge that..
Tucked away on Yellow Submarine as it is I never took any notice of It’s All Too Much until I heard the version by The Church from their covers album Box of Birds. I love it now.
My favourite version.
Can’t see it, Hubes – was it Steve Hillage? Or something else?
It was of course the woolly hatted one
Huzzah! Cups of tea all round!
(Also one of my favourite covers – and dare I risk saying that his version of Hurdy Gurdy Man might be better than DONOVAN’S?)
You are of course correct.
Good God! @cookieboy
Someone else who likes the Church’s version of this!
Really like their cover of Faith Healer and Hiroshima mon amour too.
Just found the version of Faith Healer – never heard it before.
That’s a storming cover!
Easy peasy
A brilliant cover by David Bowie that knocks spots off the original.
Worse thing Bowie ever did (pretty much)
I agree. Worst thing the Beatles ever did too.
Mr Moonlight or Wild Honey Pie
I didn’t like it years ago but over the years I’ve come round. Sounds great and fits in on the album perfectly
Sorry, you’ve lost me?
This is better.
I can imagine it’s awful but I can’t face listening to it.
It doesn’t sound like what you think it’s going to sound like!
I meant the Bowie one but ended up under yours!
This was declared as a lost Lennon & McCartney track and placed on a US bootleg
Galaxie 500 did a great version too
The Beatles invented Punk, they just didn’t play fast enough.
Glen Matlock was kicked out of the Pistols for (apparently) liking The Beatles, but The Beatles had already cemented their place in punk folklore by appearing on the B side of the first UK Punk single.
But but….they couldn’t rock for toffee.
I’d suggest the witnesses to the Hamburg shows would strongly disagree for starters.
Dig a St Vincent?
A not too shabby version of Hey Bulldog
A George tune, so not John & Paul, but how about Show Of Hands’ version of If I Needed Someone?
She’s A Woman by Jeff Beck. I play this more than the original cos it’s on Blow By Blow which I listen to a fair bit. The original is very good though. Jeff did a mean Day In The Life too but I’m not going to suggest…
Same producer too.
Does the Stones’ version of I Wanna Be Your Man count? It came out before the Fabs had a go.
Neither are as assertive as Suzi.
Oh come on, it’s clearly Got To Get You Into My Life by Earth Wind & Fire.
Pisses on the original, and all the suggestions above, come to that.
Good point, well made.
I don’t know about you but I find Susanna Hoffs All I Gotta Do more alluring than the original. I think it’s the sultry voice.
One of John’s best vocals for me so I have to disagree
It’s a bit rockist but…it’s the Chameleons:
I’ve spent 10 fruitless minutes trying to track down an, I think, Japanese 60s girl band playing, again, I think, Can’t Buy Me Love. I saw it on a late night programme of Beatles covers, but now I can’t even find any trace of the programme. None of this is much help unless anyone can find it, but t was absolutely joyous.
Pushing my luck I know, but the Pixies used to do “Wild Honey Pie” early on and it made it onto a Peel Session
Or there’s this.
As a workshy longhaired artschool fop I was once party to a jolly wheeze that involved throwing an old upright piano down a flight of steep steps. The resultant cacophony was definitely “better” than Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da and mercifully shorter in duration.
Always loved your work.
Oh, that was you and your mates was it? I always thought it was Laurel & Hardy.
Ours was a cover version.
I admire Kim Deal’s chutzpah.
Gets my vote, but I don’t really rate the white album, so I tend to prefer the covers.
Love this version You Won’t See Me, such sweet vocals
I was beginning to worry about the poor taste of our massive, until this finally made an appearance.
Wilco – suitably ragged
Hard to compare with the original bearing in mind it’s an instrumental. I saw the Buddy Rich Band a couple of times back in the day and this tune was always a highlight. In Glasgow, in the 70’s, in a pub called The Amphora, in Sauchiehall Street, the George McGowan big band used to play on a Saturday afternoon. Drummer George’s 15 piece band was set up the same as Buddy Rich and he always included this arrangemnet of Norwegian Wood. George passed away in 2021 at 85. He had quite a career which included a period with Alex Harvey’s Soul Band.
https://youtu.be/m2ZDfVSoqoM
Jeez, The Amphora! Now that takes me back…
Perhaps not “better” than the original but I find Big Daddy’s 50’s style remake of Sgt Pepper to be worth listening to.
This is their Buddy Hollyesque A Day in the Life
Maybe not better but decidedly different.
Here’s Pet with Sgt Pepper’s.
Here’s a whole show of people doing Lennon/McCartney covers. Nothing could be more 60s…
There’s a whole album of Booker T doing Abbey Road, which is really rather good. Probably not better than the Fabs, though.
It is indeed – McLemore Avenue, named after the street housing Stax Studios. The 2011 remaster has Booker T and The MGs covering more Beatles tracks.
George Benson too, I have this one:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side_of_Abbey_Road
I have to disagree, Dai – I’ve never seen anything more 60s than this monstrosity!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69G4A9Jl5N4&pp=ygURdG9tIGpvbmVzIHNpbmdsZXM%3D
This is pretty great.