Vote For Pedro: The one-year anniversary of Covering The Mouse is fast approaching. To celebrate, Kurtis is asking his readers to vote for their favorite Disney covers that he’s posted. Head on over here to let him know what you want to hear.

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My niece has been in town this week, visiting with her boyfriend who’s from New Zealand. That’s all the excuse I need to present a collection of Kiwi music. Special thanks to Frank and to Kiwi Sue for helping me put this week’s post together.

Wing “Highway To Hell” (AC/DC)
Wing was born in Hong Kong but moved to New Zealand, where her apparently well-to-do husband has financed a series of CDs featuring Wing’s singular performances. She is so famous she was featured in an episode of South Park. She reminds me a lot of Mrs. Miller.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” (Split Enz)
When I was researching the song I discovered that people either love this song or absolutely despise it. I’m not sure why, it’s harmless enough. This is just Ted Leo and his electric guitar, doing his best Billy Bragg impression.

Bic Runga “Ashes To Ashes” (David Bowie)
I had never heard of Bic Runga before I started writing this post but she’s apparently quite popular in New Zealand. And rightly so, she’s got a beautiful voice.

Head Like A Hole “Summer Nights” (From the musical Grease)
HLAH were huge in New Zealand before they broke up, even snarling traffic by playing atop a rooftop in downtown Auckland.

Stephen Malkmus “Death And The Maiden” (The Verlaines)
New Zealand is so isolated that people outside of NZ haven’t heard many Kiwi bands and so there aren’t a whole lot of covers of them. Especially once you get past the Finn brothers (Split Enz and Crowded House). But here’s a cover of New Zealand’s Verlaines.

Rachael Barton “God Defend New Zealand” (Traditional)
Rachael Barton is a very talented classical violinist from Chicago. Here she has her way with the national anthem of New Zealand. And it’s a strange national anthem. Usually a national anthem boasts about how great a country is and/or how mighty its military is. This one basically asks God to protect the nation from everything from foreign invaders to athlete’s foot.

The great Bo Diddley died recently. Before we get to the covers tribute let’s pause to review one of the more amusing commercials of recent years. For you youngsters, Bo Jackson was an athlete who played professional baseball and professional football at the same time.

Mary Shelley Overdrive “Who Do You Love” (Bo Diddley)
Boy, this is one creepy song. They do a great job of taking one of the great old warhorses and doing something new with it.

Blues Magoos “Who Do You Love” (Bo Diddley)
This one’s a repost from last year. I don’t normally repost stuff but this is another good example of taking a song well-known for its beat and doing something else with it.

Quicksilver Messenger Service “Mona” (Bo Diddley)
This is from the live album that also includes a twenty-minute version of “Who Do You Love.” It’s also the song that introduced me to Bo Diddley’s music. Really.

Melanie C “I Want Candy” (The Strangeloves)
So many other songs have used the Bo Diddley beat over the years. This is the first one that came to mind.

Spanky Wilson and the Quantic Soul Orchestra “You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover” (Bo Diddley)
You don’t often hear trumpets and clarinets on a Bo Diddley song.

I’ve posted dance music in the past but it recently occurred to me that I had yet to post songs about dancing. I’ve just crossed that off my to-do list.

Okkervil River “Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear” (Alan Price/Randy Newman)
The Handsome Family wrote a song about Amelia Earhart and a dancing bear. Unfortunately nobody has ever covered it, so here’s my second-favorite dancing bear song.

Detholz! “Dancing On The Ceiling” (Lionel Richie)
Is dancing on the ceiling a good thing? Is it something to which we should all aspire? Doesn’t it just leave hard-to-clean footprints after the party’s over?

M. Ward “Let’s Dance” (David Bowie)
This song was a big hit, but for me it marked David Bowie’s change from a trend setter to a trend follower and started his long downward spiral into artistic irrelevance. This stripped-down arrangement rescues it from the dustbin of history.

Jaymz Bee and the Royal Jelly Orchestra “Safety Dance” (Men Without Hats)
I could have forgiven the ridiculous video for this song if it had swung like this version.

Toploader “Dancing In The Moonlight” (King Harvest)
This song strays just far enough from the original to be interesting. It has a very nice relaxed feel.

My family and I are taking a short vacation and won’t be back until Tuesday. Rather than keep my rabid fan base waiting for the chewy goodness that is Cover Freak I’ve decided to post early this week. Since I’ve had less time than usual to lovingly craft a theme it’s just random stuff this time around.

Concrete Blond “Ghost Riders In The Sky” (Burl Ives)
I’m no fan of Concrete Blond. I particularly hate that “Joey I’m Not Angry” song they did. A local disk jockey played that song every morning at the same time for months on end. It gave me road rage on my way to work. Even so, I think this is a really soulful version of the song that has been called “the best country/western song ever,” according to Wikipedia.

Ksine “My Way” (Frank Sinatra)
This song features some great distorted guitar and electric piano. More atmospheric than the Sid Vicious version but I really dig it anyway. It’s from a very cool project that compiles tribute albums to love singers. So far they’ve done a Lionel Richie tribute and a Frank Sinatra tribute. I can’t wait to hear what they’ll do next.

Charlie Musselwhite “Everybody Loves Me” (Alejandro Escovedo)
I’ve been a huge Alejandro Escovedo fan for years. Seems that he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves as a great songwriter and incendiary live performer. Mr. Musselwhite delivers a greasy blues version of this song from a tribute album put out a few years ago to help defray Mr. Escovedo’s medical expenses.

The Polka Floyd Show “Have A Cigar” (Pink Floyd)
Yes Virginia, there’s a whole album of polka covers of Pink Floyd songs out there. The songs themselves are quite well done, funny and sincere at the same time. It’s hard to listen to the whole album at one sitting though.

Glass Eye “Cecilia” (Simon And Garfunkle)
After I posted Glass Eye‘s version of “Minnie The Moocher” a few months back the bassist’s brother sent me this song. They dispense completely with the Caribbean rhythms turn it into a straight ahead rocker.

When people discuss the brilliance of Warren Zevon’s songwriting they often concentrate on antisocial behavior of the people who inhabit his songs. But the most important thing in the late Mr. Zevon’s writing is the essential humanity of those characters, their search for meaning and love and hope against overwhelming circumstances. Here are a few examples.

David Lindley and Hani Naser “Play It All Night Long” (Warren Zevon)
This song really makes you want to take up farming, doesn’t it?

The Wildhearts “Carmelita” (Warren Zevon)
There are quite a few covers of this song, most staying fairly close to the melancholy feel of the original. This one totally rocks, and that’s kind of odd for a song about being strung out on heroin.

Shawn Colvin “Tenderness On The Block” (Warren Zevon)
One of the greatest songs written by a man about a young woman coming of age.

Jerry Garcia “Accidentally Like A Martyr” (Warren Zevon)
Longtime readers know that I have no special love for the Grateful Dead, but Uncle Jerry’s style suits this wistful song well. Special thanks to Johnny Quest for helping me find this one.

Warren Zevon “Back In The High Life Again” (Steve Winwood)
The original version of this song is pretty upbeat, the song of a guy looking forward to his future. Since this is Warren Zevon singing, he sounds like he doesn’t really believe the things he’s saying.