{"id":280,"date":"2006-02-01T18:48:50","date_gmt":"2006-02-02T02:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/songoose.com\/?p=97"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","slug":"top-5-cover-songs-non-xmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 Cover Songs – Non-Xmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

So a few weeks ago my pal Gordo challenged me to put together a list of my 5 all time favorite cover songs. Feeling the Yuletide spirit, I changed the assignment, choosing to put up my five favorite Xmas covers<\/a>. However, as promised, I’ve also put together my five favorite regular covers, as originally requested.<\/p>\n

Oh, so my criteria for this is that the cover has to be better than the original. There are a lot of nice covers that pretty much just regurgitate the original, which really doesn’t do a whole lot of good for anyone. Anyhoo, here goes:<\/p>\n

“Jersey Girl”, Bruce Springsteen:<\/strong> Amazingly, this song has become so ingrained in the Springsteen canon, most people don’t ever realize it was first performed by Tom Waits. Really, this is what a cover is all about — making it completely one’s own.<\/p>\n

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow\/What a Wonderful World”, Israel Kamakawiwo`ole:<\/strong> This song has become the de facto Hawaiian anthem, and deservedly so. Just a beautifully poignant, unique song.<\/p>\n

“Lawyers, Guns and Money”, The Wallflowers:<\/strong> Despite the recent trend to honor Warren Zevon posthumously, and despite his obvious success as a songwriter and performer, I never really cared for his music. However, Jakob Dylan & Co. inject new life into this one — It flat-out rocks!<\/p>\n

“Wurlitzer Prize”, Norah Jones: <\/strong>Although never realeased on a proper album, it is my favorite track by Jones. Her sultry voice matches the achingly beautiful song perfectly.<\/p>\n

“Streets of Philadelphia”, Marah:<\/strong> David Bielanko’s rollicking banjo turns the downtrodden original into a fun-loving barnburner. While it may take away a bit from the original’s serious overtones, it rocks nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So a few weeks ago my pal Gordo challenged me to put together a list of my 5 all time favorite cover songs. Feeling the Yuletide spirit, I changed the assignment, choosing to put up my five favorite Xmas covers. However, as promised, I’ve also put together my five favorite regular covers, as originally requested. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-top-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}