Worst Song Covers
2009 September 22
Here are some of my nominations for worst song covers: Pat Boone’s “Smoke on the Water,” Johnny Cash’s “Danny boy,” and David Hasselhoff’s “Love Me Tender.” But you can’t beat these (William Shatner’s “Rocket Man” and Lawrence Welk’s “One Toke Over the Line Sweet Jesus,” which he describes as a “modern spiritual,” apparently not realizing it’s about marijuana):
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I love Cash’s crackly-voice version of Danny Boy.
I’d seen the Shatner debacle before. That’s just painful. But the Lawrence Welk thing was new to me. Maybe they really were one toke over the line. Did Lawrence mean “modern spiritual” in the peyote sense? Anyway, I’m just so glad that none of my worst sermons (so far) have been recorded.
For a worst covers list, I nominate Metallica’s version of “Turn the Page.” It sounds all mad and menacing, like Rambo singing a sad song. Unless there was a lot of royalty money in it, I bet Seger cringed.
no contest to jewel singing “sweet home alabama”. Can an alaskan really sing that song?
Metallica’s cover of “Turn The Page”
Guns n Roses doing Knockin on Heavens Door. Sacrilege.
The second video is hilarious! How could they not know?
One word (two actually, but who’s counting)…Leningrad Cowboys. Their cover of “Sweet Home Alabama” with the Red Army Chorus (really) has to be seen to be believed. Greatest cover act…ever.
I laughed out loud when I heard Sir Lawrence say ” modern spiritual”. Please tell me we aren’t THAT clueless !
Sounds like you’ve forgotten about Mrs. Miller from the 60′s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw07CDid0JM
Or perhaps you just haven’t heard anything by Wing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI1xgP4sgRE
That said, you gotta love that LW clip.
gt,
I love the Guns and Roses’ cover of “Knocking”. It is even more special when I heard the story of why they did it. It was a tribute to a friend of Axel’s who had died. Makes it even better.
You can learn quite a bit watching “When Metal Ruled The World”.
Another great cover: Billy, Dusty and Frank (that little ol’ band from Texas) doing “Viva Las Vegas”.
I am listening to Pandora and I discovered that Smashing Pumpkins covered “Landslide”.
Failure.
Had to post it on here!
Why they did it still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like it. To each his own.
I read somewhere Hillary Duff covered My Generation. Please say it ain’t so.