Sam Cooke sums it up with this little tune, except for the Frankenstein bit. Hilarious though.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Covering: Connect the Dots
Covers are excellent. I really love hearing different variations on old songs; every time you hear something new in the song that makes you think differently. Some of my favorite songs are covered such as True Love Will Find You In the End and I Was Young When I Left Home, which is where this small whirlwind of cover madness started. (Links go to song downloads) I was riding somewhere in the Sub with Mom when the Antony Hegarty song I Was Young When I Left Home came on via the iPod. Mom says "auugh".
Me:"What?"
Mom:"I've just heard this song so many times before." (She listens to Dark Was the Night far more than she should so I figured she was talking about that)
Me:"Maybe if you listened to something other than DWTN this wouldn't happen.." Mom:"No, this song is ancient, I'm just tired of it."
Aha.. Here I was thinking this song was an original done by Antony. I was afraid it might have been written by some quasi-bad folk singer a hundred years ago but after some quick wiki researching it turns out it was written by none other than Bob Dylan! Hurray! We've found the origin and it's by one of the best folk cover writers ever!
But wait. What did Wikipedia actually say?
"Dylan's own reinterpretation of the traditional "Nine Hundred Miles"
Gasp! Dylan covered it!
Now this is exciting, lets trace it back a little farther.
Another Google search later and I found that "Nine Hundred Miles" was unsurprisingly done by Woody Guthrie, one of Dylan's inspirations.
What was surprising was a Google search for "900 Miles" which turned up another familiar artist. Odetta.
So here is a little chart of where we are so far.
And now for something seemingly unrelated.
Neko Case totally rocks, we all know that. But she released a live recording from three shows (1 Chicago, 2 Toronto) in 2004 called The Tigers Have Spoken. Aside from her hilarious banter about giving tigers new habitat by feeding them children she recorded this gem. I was curious about who else did this excellent song so I checked out the Wiki and found that it was also sung by one of my favorite singers, Sam Cooke.
After some more quick Wikipedia research I discovered that This Little Light of Mine is actually a gospel song that was made popular during the civil rights movement. So it should come as no surprise that it was gloriously emanated from who else but Odetta!
Now in the course of about 4 hours I went from tracking one hundred year old song across four artists down to Odetta, and just afterward I tracked another more than likely older than one hundred year old song across three fantastic artists once again down to Odetta.
I guess if we have one thing to learn from this it's that Odetta knew how to pick a tune.
Me:"What?"
Mom:"I've just heard this song so many times before." (She listens to Dark Was the Night far more than she should so I figured she was talking about that)
Me:"Maybe if you listened to something other than DWTN this wouldn't happen.." Mom:"No, this song is ancient, I'm just tired of it."
Aha.. Here I was thinking this song was an original done by Antony. I was afraid it might have been written by some quasi-bad folk singer a hundred years ago but after some quick wiki researching it turns out it was written by none other than Bob Dylan! Hurray! We've found the origin and it's by one of the best folk cover writers ever!
But wait. What did Wikipedia actually say?
"Dylan's own reinterpretation of the traditional "Nine Hundred Miles"
Gasp! Dylan covered it!
Now this is exciting, lets trace it back a little farther.
Another Google search later and I found that "Nine Hundred Miles" was unsurprisingly done by Woody Guthrie, one of Dylan's inspirations.
What was surprising was a Google search for "900 Miles" which turned up another familiar artist. Odetta.
So here is a little chart of where we are so far.
And now for something seemingly unrelated.
Neko Case totally rocks, we all know that. But she released a live recording from three shows (1 Chicago, 2 Toronto) in 2004 called The Tigers Have Spoken. Aside from her hilarious banter about giving tigers new habitat by feeding them children she recorded this gem. I was curious about who else did this excellent song so I checked out the Wiki and found that it was also sung by one of my favorite singers, Sam Cooke.
After some more quick Wikipedia research I discovered that This Little Light of Mine is actually a gospel song that was made popular during the civil rights movement. So it should come as no surprise that it was gloriously emanated from who else but Odetta!
Now in the course of about 4 hours I went from tracking one hundred year old song across four artists down to Odetta, and just afterward I tracked another more than likely older than one hundred year old song across three fantastic artists once again down to Odetta.
 |
| Click chart to enlarge |
I guess if we have one thing to learn from this it's that Odetta knew how to pick a tune.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
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