Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 346 with our special guest Jason Dedrick! Jason came by to celebrate Christmas in July on the hottest day of the year in the hottest office in Vancouver.
This week on the show, a new – perhaps life-threatening – challenge; our ancestors; family secrets; amateur 1980’s music videos; wot!; grave boxing; the lonely shepherd vs. the swinging shepherd; whale tormentors; Jason;s official thanks; dense continuity; Justice League opinions; money-spinning failures; dead supermen; unfair advantages; the extroduction of Jimmy Olsen; don’t mess with Charles Schultz; comparative high school reading lists; reading Vonnegut; BJ and the Bear facts; disturbing books for little minds; naïveté; a Suite Life controversy; the Treasury of Wit and Wisdom; and, finally, the Top 5 cover songs that are better than the orginal as subjectively chosen by Dave.
Thanks for listening.
This week’s Top 5 Cover Songs That Are Better Than the Original as chosen by Dave:
1) “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush from the 1980 album Hounds of Love and from the eponymous 1998 album by The Futureheads
2) “Morning Morgantown” by Joni Mitchell from the 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon and the originally unreleased version by Jude, which is currently available on the anthology Milk Of The Tree: Female Vocal Folk & Singer-Songwriters 1966-1973
3) “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga from the 2008 album The Fame and the Glee Cast (Lea Michele and Idina Menzel) from the 2010 album Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 – Showstoppers
4) “The French Girl” by Ian and Sylvia from the 1966 album Play One for Me and the originally unreleased Gene Clark 1966 single “Only Colombe”b/w”The French Girl” from the 1991 collection Echoes
5) “I Don’t Know Why” by Stevie Wonder from the 1968 album For Once in My Life and The Rolling Stones from the 1989 box set Singles Collection: The London Years
Please take a moment to check out our guests fantastic podcast The Gentlemen of Elegant Leisure. You want to elegantly leisure, don’t you???
Hey, everyone. Episode 350 is coming up fast. Get your questions to Ian and David. Here’s your chance to make them talk about something you’re actually interested in! Finally! Tweet, Facebook, comment down below or email your questions to sneakyd@sneakydragon.com
Department of Corections:
Whoops! Dave misspoke when he said the Kat Bush song “Hounds of Love” was from the album The Kick Inside. It was actually from the album of the exact same name, Dave, you dummy!Hounds of Love! Oof! We blame the heat and also Dave.
And a simple bit of research revealed that “I Don’t Know Why aka I Don’t Know Why I Love You” was in fact on the 1975 collection of off-cuts and unreleased tracks Metamorphosis! Sigh…
(Dave really should do more research for this segment rather than talking out of his bum.)
Preston Sturges’ Christmas in July!
(Did we say with Barbara Stanwyck? Oh, the heat!)
Jason as the Lonely Shepherd on the 1991 Pacific Profiles Christmas Special:
David mixed up his shepherd songs! This is “The Lonely Shepherd”:
(You heard it in Kill Bill if you saw Kill Bill)
and this is “The Swinging Shepherd”:
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Thank you for Morning Morgantown, I hadn’t heard it before. I love the chord changes in it, and the harmonies on the Jude version. I’m a music guy like David, the lyrics aren’t as important to me. Thank you for the shows guys.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Thanks for all the listens!
Guys, the wrong side joke is about mom and dad fighting all the time. If you’re on his father’s side, you’re on the wrong side.
Ahhhh…
Hi guys,
Thanks for doing my top 5 suggestion, well done.
First I’m going to defend my examples which Dave did not agree with. First I want to say that I am a Rolling Stones fan, I think they’ve done some incredible music. But I do think Satisfaction is a totally overrated song. It’s one guitar riff over and over, no chorus, no bridge. Pretty repetitive, and it gets pretty dull. So I think Devo took a repetitive song and tried to add layers and different aspects to a song that was pretty one dimensional.
I would say the same about American Woman, one riff over and over with no chorus or bridge. Now I will admit the Butthole Surfers version is pretty tough to listen to. But they did make it interesting, with so many variations in sound.
The only song I ever heard by The Futureheads was Hounds of Love. I was blown away by it and went to see them play based on that song alone. And they did not disappoint, it was an incredible show! But for me, a key to a good cover is to keep the vocal melody and main aspects of the original song, while making it your own. I feel like the Futureheads lost the original song in their interpretation of it. I never knew it was a cover and even hearing them back to back its hard to tell they are the same song. So for me, while its such a fantastic song, it loses points based on that.
I thought I would include a cover I recorded of a Ringo Starr song, since we are talking about covers. His version is way better, but this was fun to do!
https://tarleks.bandcamp.com/track/photograph
What a nice surprise to hear Jason – always an excellent guest. That was a really interesting choice of covers from Dave. Personally, I tend to like covers that present a radically different take on the original, when the interpreter brings out qualities you hadn’t heard before, or uncovers a hidden meaning.
Examples include:
Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
k d lang – Love is Everything (Jane Siberry)
Johnny Cash – Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)
The Roches – Hallelujah Chorus (not actually sure this counts as a cover, but hey…)
Paul Anka – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
Not saying that last one is a better version… but I love that it’s so radically different, and how the big band revel in the dynamics of the song.