24 Great Covers

These are some of my favourite covers. The titles are linked to information on each track. The background of many of these songs is worth reading up on, especially the ones where authorship is unknown. Where Did You Sleep Last Night? for example, is over 130 years old. Whiskey In The Jar is even older still, and not by Thin Lizzy.

1. Bigmouth Strikes Again (Placebo)
2. Bizarre Love Triangle (Frente)
3. Dancing In The Dark (Tegan & Sara)
4. Dead Souls (Nine Inch Nails)
5. Easy (Faith No More)
6. Flame Trees (Sarah Blasko)
7. Gold Dust Woman (Hole)
8. Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)
9. Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
10. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
11. It’s Oh So Quiet (Björk)
12. Landslide (The Smashing Pumpkins)
13. Love Rollercoaster (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
14. Mad World (Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules)
15. Maggie’s Farm (Rage Against The Machine)
16. My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston, Concert For George)
17. Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl (Nikka Costa)
18. Running Up That Hill (Placebo)
19. Sweet Jane (Cowboy Junkies)
20. The Drover’s Boy +mp3 (John Williamson)
21. Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Nirvana)
22. Whiskey In The Jar (Metallica)
23. Why Don’t You Do Right? (Amy Irving)
24. Wild Horses (The Sundays)

I’ve included a link to an mp3 of The Drover’s Boy by Ted Egan, as it’s arguably the rarest track listed here. The John Williamson version was the first I heard as a child. There’s no information regarding it on wikipedia.

Ted Egan, an Australian songwriter and folklorist wrote the song The Drover’s Boy in recognition of the many Aboriginal women who worked as drovers in years past. With their hair cut short and breasts flattened with scarves, they were made to conceal their identity and live and work as men did, as Aboriginal women were not permitted to work as drovers. The lyrics highlight the nature of the close, yet hidden relationships that existed between many white men and these Aboriginal women: “They couldn’t understand why the drover cried as they buried the drover’s boy… They couldn’t understand why the drover cut a lock of the dead boy’s hair…” (source)