What's the Best (or Worst) Cover Version of a Song?

A busker in Helen, Georgia, singing "Angel From Montgomery"
as good as John Prine, almost as good as Bonnie Raitt.

What's the best (or worst) cover version you've heard of a favorite song?

I'm "asking for a friend" because -- somewhere in Bergenfield, NJ (I won't say precisely where or when to protect the innocent) -- I recently heard a performance of the worst cover version in the history of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind."

It was jangly and upbeat, and I rushed home just to play the original version to restore balance in the world. That's when I also stumbled up another cover of the same song by Johnny Cash. It was heart-breakingly good. Give it a listen...

 

Around the same time, Cash also recorded his famous cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" -- which is here, if you're not one of the several hundred million people who have already streamed it.

Perhaps my all-time favorite great cover is Springsteen's version of "Jersey Girl," originally by Tom Waits. Here are 10 others I love:

• "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley (originally Leonard Cohen)
• "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell (Gloria Jones, and "our song," according to someone I once dated)
• "Angel from Montgomery" by Bonnie Raitt (John Prine)
• Just about any cover version of "Creep" (although Radiohead's original version is classic)
• "Mad World" by Gary Jules (Tears for Fears)
• "The Sound of Silence" by Disturbed (Paul Simon, a bold choice, considering how Paul's "American Tune" is perhaps my all-time favorite song)
• "Me and Bobbie McGee" by Janis Joplin (Kris Kristofferson)
• "Hasten Down the Wind" by Linda Ronstadt (Warren Zevon)
• "Sweet Jane" by the Cowboy Junkies (Lou Reed)
• "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy (but only as a homage to Christine McVie)

How did I exclude anything by Tori Amos? Well, anyway, those were the first that came to mind on this, Aretha Franklin's birthday.

Aretha, after all, out-covers anyone, even Bruce and Tori, with her version of Otis Redding's "Respect." Did you ever hear her version of Elton John's "Border Song"? She changes the end lyric from "What's his color? I don't care" to the more challenging "What's is color? Do you care?"

As for bad covers, I think I remember The Muppets once singing "We Built This City" about a dozen years ago. But maybe I was hallucinating, and I never much liked original by Jefferson Airplane/Starship anyway.

Perhaps -- having just watched the final episodes of "Daisy Jones & The Six" last night -- I'll say my least favorite cover is U2's version of the otherwise haunting "Dancing Barefoot."

Covering a Patti Smith classic? Some things just shouldn't be done.

What do you think?