Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

A third Sunday covers mix for October this time with an 80s indie edge and some repeat offenders from the last two weeks present and correct. Starts out all small hours and hushed, goes noisier, comes down again and finishes where it started with The Velvets, one of the most covered bands. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane
• Sonic Youth: Superstar
• Primal Scream: Carry Me Home
• The House Of Love: Who By Fire
• Ciccone Youth: Into The Groovey
• World Of Twist: This Too Shall Pass Away
• Red Snapper: Sound And Vision
• R.E.M.: Indian Summer
• Minutemen: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
• Calexico: Corona
• Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins: Pale Blue Eyes (Western)

Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane on their magical 1988 album The Trinity Session. The album was famously recorded in Toronto's Church of The Holy Trinity. Their cover was based on the version the Velvets played on their 1969 Live album rather than the one on Loaded. Lou Reed said the Cowboy Junkies take on the song was his favourite, the way the song was meant to be done. 

Sonic Youth featured twice last week and do this week too- their version of Superstar came out on a 1994 tribute to The Carpenters. Richard Carpenter didn't like it at all. Sonic Youth take a blow torch to the song, a huge amount of reverb, one massive piano note, some wobbly guitar sounds and surely nail something true about the song. The Carpenters released it in 1971 with LA session musicians The Wrecking Crew and a toned down, less suggestive lyric ('I can't wait to sleep with you again' was changed to 'be with you again'). The song was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell and recorded first by Delaney and Bonnie in 1969, a song about the relationships between rock stars and groupies in the 60s.

Carry Me Home was on Primal Scream's Dixie- Narco EP, a bleak Dennis Wilson song made bleaker still by Primal Scream and Andrew Weatherall while recording at Ardent in Memphis in 1991. Weatherall's production and arrangement is superb, an extension of the Screamadelica sound into darker places. Dennis' song is sung from the point of view of a dying soldier in Vietnam.

Who By Fire is a Leonard Cohen song covered by The House Of Love on a 1991 tribute album, I'm Your Fan- there are loads of 80s/ 90s alt/ indie stars on the album including R.E.M., Pixies, The Lilac Time, Ian McCulloch, Lloyd Cole, Robert Forster, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, James and John Cale. I'm not sure any of them really improve on the original songs. 

Ciccone Youth were a Madonna inspired Sonic Youth side project with Minuteman Mike Watt on bass. Watt was in a bad way after D. Boon's death and what became The White Album was a way to get him playing again. Into The Groovey is a cover of Madonna (obvs) and samples her too. SY loved Madonna in the 80s, they loved Into The Groove. They also covered Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love. 

World Of Twist did a few covers- Kick Out The Jams, She's A Rainbow, Life And Death- and this one, This Too Shall Pass Away, which sits in the middle of side one on their sole album, 1991's Quality Street. Quality Street is a heady stew of psychedelic pop, Northern Soul and late 80s Mancunian indie. The original version of This Too... is a 1964 single by the Honeycombs.

Red Snapper's cover of Bowie's Sound And Vision is on Ban- Di- To, out earlier this year and thoroughly recommended. Red Snapper are a formidable live band and Sound And Vision is a live favourite- I saw them do it at The Golden Lion in 2023.

Indian Summer is a semi- legendary song by Beat Happening, lo fi indie pioneers from Olympia, Washington. The song is a slow burning tale of youth and lust, originally released in 1988. R.E.M.'s cover is from a 2008 single, Hollow Man. I have versions by Spectrum (Sonic Boom), Luna and The Jazz Butcher as well as this one. In fact Spectrum's may be the best version and should probably have been included here- R.E.M. find some late period magic and intensity here though.

Minutemen covered Have You Ever Seen The Rain? on their fourth and final album, 1985's Three Way Tie For Last, a cover of Watt and Boon's teenage heroes Creedence Clearwater Revival. AT two minute thirty seconds long it's an epic by Minutemen standards. D Boon died shortly after the album's release.

Calexico's cover of Minutemen's Corona was on their 2003 masterpiece Feast Of Wire. The original is from 1984's Double Nickels On the Dime, one of D Boon's best songs, a heartfelt protest song for the downtrodden people of mid- 80s Mexico. Calexico played it live and then covered it, adding mariachi horns. Let's forget the fact it became the theme tune to Jackass. 

Back to The Velvets. Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins covered Lou Reed's Pale Blue Eyes for a one off single in 1984, done for the soundtrack of Alan Horne's Punk Rock Hotel. It's a much loved cover, Edwyn and Paul both sounding as good as they ever did.