This one didn’t do much for me. Maybe because it’s an instrumental track.
In 7th place, earning 6 points - Lord Sitar - “I Am The Walrus”
Session musician Big Jim Sullivan took up the sitar in the 1960s and released a 1968 album under the name Lord Sitar that included this cover.
I’m not a fan of the original Beatles’ song. In general, I like McCartney Beatles songs more than I like Lennon Beatles songs. If I’d mentioned that earlier, I think some people would have reconsidered their choices. Lennon wrote part of this while on an acid trip and it comes across as self-indulgent word salad. Lord Sitar’s version improves upon that by not having a bunch of stupid words due to being an instrumental. I flip-flopped a lot on this vs the previous song.
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I charge you with heresy.
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This was my entry. I’ll take 6 points, thank you.
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In 6th place, earning 7 points - Santana - “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
Comments: I’m sorry that the song choice lacks any imagination whatsoever and I’m ready for the pain. I’m very weak with the Beatles/former Beatles oeuvre. All I will say for myself is that this is one of the better covers from a guitarist imo. The GH HoF induction version with Prince is great too.
This song comes from the Santana album Guitar Heaven, a collection of covers with a lineup of all-star guests. This particular track features India Arie and Yo-Yo Ma. While much of the album features alt-rockers taking over vocal duties, India Arie provides a more soulful alternative to that–see also Nas on a version of AC/DC’s “Back in Black”–so this track seems like less of a pandering money grab than the rest of the album.
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My second choice was a cover of a slow John Lennon post-Beatles solo song. Looking at the reveal so far looks like I dodged a bullet.
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Santana is mine. Yeah, 7 points is a steal, I thought the song choice alone was destined for a nodium, even if it’s a pretty decent job otherwise.
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In 5th place, earning 8 points - Billie Eilish - “Something”
This sparse track, with Billie Eilish accompanied only by her brother Finneas on piano, comes from a performance for SirusXM’s’ Alt Nation, as far as I can tell. It’s not especially inventive, but I like her voice when she’s not whispering. (And to be clear, I don’t hate that she whispers, I hate that my poor hearing can’t make out the lyrics when she does). I’m probably giving her bonus points for covering a song so much older than she is.
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This was me. This was a category I had to find a song for, so just looked at Beatles covers by artists I like and chose one.
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In 4th place, earning 9 points -The Breeders - “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”
This track from the White Album was covered by the Breeders on their debut album, 1990’s Pod. While Tori Amos turned it into an anti-gun track for Strange Little Girls, here the Breeders give it an eerie atmosphere with the shift from lines that almost seem girlishly whispered to those belted out like an angry rocker.
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This doesn’t sound like a Beatles song at all.
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As we head to the podium, I’ll note that in this category, I had one clear winner and there was a lot of shifting for the spots below first.
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In 3rd place, earning 10 points - The Meters - “Come Together”
Comments: A funky-ass cover of a Beatles classic.
This track can be found on the 1992 album Meters Jam. It was an unreleased track originally recorded in the 1970s, so it’s not the Meters at their best, but this is still good. “Funky-ass cover” is an accurate description for a version I think I like more than Aerosmith’s more famous hit. While the vocals aren’t the focus, they aren’t distractingly bad and they give off a sense of being an integral part of the song rather than an afterthought, so I feel comfortable putting this track above any of the instrumentals in this category.
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Podium!
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lol aerosmith cover…i once went out to a bar with ~10 other people, all my age or slightly younger. The aerosmith cover of this song came on and I grumbled about how I kind of hated it and liked the original better.
Not one single person I was with knew that a) it was a cover, or b) who did the original. I wept for humanity that day.
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Let me take this time to point out that, since I allowed for solo Beatle songs, this is quite possibly the nut-low song that someone could have submitted to me:
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In 2nd place, earning 11 points - PKM - “Eleanor Rigby”
PKM was formed by Kenny Soule and Pee Wee Watson of Nantucket and Michael Gardner. This is a guitar-heavy interpretation of the song that is harder than the original but not too hard. The only ding I have against it is that it clocks in at 6:48, or more than three times the length of the original. Is it my favorite cover of “Eleanor Rigby”? It’s not even my favorite ER cover submitted to this Walrus and it’s not better than this:
but this is a fine version that has a band putting their own spin on a good song.
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That Eleanor Rigby is a pretty popular gal.
“Yesterday” is usually listed as the most-covered song of all time and I got none of that and three Eleanor Rigbys. In retrospect, I may have given “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” a bit of a boost because it went a bit deeper into the Beatles catalogue.
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