As you may know, Chicago has a new mayor, ending the 20-year reign of Daley The Younger. Daley’s time in office has left quite a mark on the city. He planted lots of trees, made Chicago much more bicycle-friendly, and of course gave us Millennium Park and The Bean.

His power was largely unchecked and he was able to make his whims reality. For instance he took a junket to Europe and was enchanted by all the wrought-iron fencing he saw in Amsterdam. So he came home and decreed that Chicago should look like that. Every public park in the city was surrounded with “ornamental iron” fencing. Every building permit for a parking lot or a new building required that the property owner purchase said ornamental iron from a politically-connected fencing company. I would have preferred that he fell in love with some other aspect of Amsterdam because I just don’t see the charm in having a gas station surrounded by iron fencing.

The thing is, this type of fencing is incredibly high-maintenance. It requires nearly constant scraping, priming, and painting to prevent it from rusting. On my way to work I drive through less-affluent parts of the city where the property owners don’t have the money, time, or inclination to maintain their required fencing. And so it’s all begun to rust away. And there’s nothing like block after block of rust to make a city look down on its luck. Somehow it just doesn’t look like the ‘Dam.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I’ve been thinking about rust lately.

Taylor Mitchell “Diamonds And Rust” (Joan Baez)
I had been listening to the Judas Priest version of this song for years before I discovered that they didn’t write it. As much as I love what Priest did with the song, it’s a little too well-known for Cover freak. So instead I picked this version that’s slinkier than Joan Baez and not as aggressive as the closeted gay man dressed in leather and spikes.

I’ve always liked this song because it’s bitter and angry but still acknowledges the good memories from a failed relationship, the “diamonds” of the title.

Rust “Ordinary World” (Duran Duran)
Duran Duran’s music is lush and stylish but the lyrics can be surprisingly dark. Rust mines the darkness and threat in this song.

Rusted Root “Evil Ways” (Santana)
When you think of patchouli-stinking hippie jam bands, Rusted Root has to be near the top of the list. And they do a buoyant polyrhythmic Grateful-Dead-parking-lot drum circle job on this tune. Not quite to my taste but it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Johnny Cash “Rusty Cage” (Soundgarden)
This of course comes from the wonderful American Recordings series that Johnny Cash did with Rick Rubin. Those recordings are consistently excellent and gave Johnny well-deserved recognition and a wider audience late in his life. But you’ve got to wonder what he thought about the lyrics of some of the songs Rubin brought to him. I don’t think Johnny ever wrote a song about burning dinosaur bones and riding packs of dogs.

The song doesn’t mention whether the rusty cage in question is made of ornamental iron, but if it was built in Chicago you can bet it is.

Rusty Wright “Summertime” (comp. George Gershwin)
It’s hard to believe that it’s Memorial Day and summer stretches before us, what with all the chilly weather and tornadoes and floods happening. But that is indeed the case and to get you in the mood for barbecue season here’s a bluesy take on the jazz standard.

As you may have heard, the Rapture was supposed to happen yesterday. That means that the righteous allegedly ascended bodily into heaven, leaving the rest of us to endure pestilence and assorted End-Of-Days type stuff. Since I write these posts in advance I don’t know if large rocks are falling from the sky as you read this and you’re busy planning your post-rapture looting, or if the Rapture didn’t happen after all and you regret spending your life’s savings on the Party To End All Parties Friday night. Either way, here’s some appropriate music for the Day After.

Terry Hall Dub Pistols “Rapture” (Blondie)
The differences between this song and the original are subtle but taken together are quite striking. The disco guitar is gone and in its place is a very heavy beat. And the rap has been updated to something more contemporary but lacking the original’s goofy sense of humor.

The Klone Orchestra “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (R.E.M.)
This must be a really fun song to play, assuming you can manage to spit all the words out while you’re playing a mile a minute. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why there are so many covers of it out there that sound just like the original. The Klone Orchestra does something different with it, slowing things way down so you can understand all the lyrics. It’s still quite fun.

This song isn’t really about the end of the world and the Rapture isn’t the end of the world anyway. If the Rapture actually happened that means we’re going to be fighting Satan’s armies until October, at which point the world will end. I hope that doesn’t mean the World Series will be cancelled.

Jaland Crossland “Great Atomic Power” (The Louvin Brothers)
This song is probably closest in spirit to the folks who have been warning about the coming Rapture. Of course the Louvin Brothers were telling us to get right with Jesus because of the impending nuclear holocaust.

Ely Bruna “The Final Countdown” (Europe)
I was never really into the hair metal scene when it was happening but I’ve grown fond of this song’s glorious excess as I’ve collected covers of it. I particularly like the fact that they never bother to say why we’re leaving for Venus. I’ve always assumed it’s because of an apocalypse of some sort, what with it being the “final” countdown and all.

Ely Bruna gives it a very breathy, close-miked reading that you can’t help but enjoy.

Melvin Couch “Spirit In The Sky” (Norman Greenbaum)
There’s no warning here, not really any bragging either. Just a simple statement of fact that the singer will be going to heaven when it starts raining frogs and the sky catches fire.

Mr. Greenbaum’s version was perfectly aimed at all the folks in the 70s who did too much acid and became Jesus Freaks. Mr. Couch turns it into a swinging gospel workout with a broader appeal.

Dolphin Blue “Back In The Good Old World” (Tom Waits)
Normally I post five songs a week but since this is a special occasion I figured I’d post an extra song. This one is from the perspective of a dead man who tells us that there is no place he’d rather be than back on Earth. I would hope that one or two of the righteous would share this perspective after they get sucked up into the sky by God’s Electrolux.

The song originally comes from the soundtrack that Mr. Waits did for the movie Night On Earth. There are four or five versions of it on the soundtrack album, all with different arrangements. There’s a waltz version, a gypsy version, and so on. I like this cover from a musical standpoint but I wish the singer wasn’t trying so hard to sound like Tom Waits.

There is a variant of the game of softball which is more or less unique to Chicago. We play the game with a ball that’s 16 inches in diameter and don’t use gloves. The rest of the world uses a smaller ball (12-inch? 14-inch? I’m not sure) and the fielders use gloves. When I went to school in Missouri and my dorm put together a softball team I got very confused when I saw them wearing gloves during a practice session. I had never seen such a thing and had no idea that anybody played softball with a glove. I mean, the ball is soft so why would you need a glove? Broken fingers are just a part of the game.

This all came rushing back to me during a conversation with my friend Cletus. He had been playing in a throwback “base ball” league that played by the rules of the turn of the 20th century. That means no gloves, among other things. He tired of the experience and told me that he was looking forward to playing softball with a glove. I of course informed him that real men play softball without gloves.

My brain being what it is, my thoughts then turned to music by, for, and about manly men. And of course I had to share those songs with all of you.

Muzzarelas “Macho Man” (The Village People)
With all the loud guitars and shouted lyrics, this is much more macho than the original.

Capri “I’m A Man” (Spencer Davis Group)
I really like this supercharged version of the Spencer Davis classic. The horn section is great. Steve Winwood was around sixteen years old when he wrote it, which is probably why he thought being a man meant having whiskers on your chin and a chrome-trimmed toilet. I’m sure that these days he has a more expansive definition of manliness.

Lou Pride “It’s a Man’s World” (James Brown)
The original is one of the greatest slow jams ever recorded, and as a result most of the people covering it don’t stray too far from the original. Thankfully Lou Pride brings the funk while reminding us that it wouldn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl.

The Dead Brothers “Ramblin’ Man” (Hank Williams)
There are some things that men do that are fundamental to their nature. One of those things is rambling. And if your woman doesn’t understand that, well that’s just too bad.

The Dead Brothers do a wonderful job on this one. I’m always up for a song that features a banjo and a tuba.

Elton John “Neanderthal Man” (Hotlegs)
This is from very early in Elton John’s career. He was probably still calling himself Reg Dwight and was working as a studio musician recording covers of hit songs for cheapo albums that cashed in on the popularity of other people’s work.

“Neanderthal Man” was recorded by Hotlegs (who later became 10cc) to test drum sounds on some new recording equipment. Then somebody realized that it was just stupid enough to be a hit and it got released on an unsuspecting public.

One of my favorite bits of movie dialogue comes from Cool Hand Luke. For those unfamiliar with the film, Paul Newman plays Luke, an inmate on a rural Southern chain gang. At one point he escapes and is captured. The prison camp’s “captain,” played wonderfully by Strother Martin, gathers all the inmates together to make an example of Luke. Luke mouths off and the captain beats the living crap out of him. Strother Martin then composes himself as only he can, turns to the inmates and announces that “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

I’ve been dealing with my own failures to communicate lately. While I would dearly love to engage in a public beatdown as an example to others, I have to content myself with a post on Cover Freak.

LED XXL “Communication Breakdown” (Led Zeppelin)
People have told me many times over the years that I’m very good at verbal and written communication. I express myself clearly and completely and I have a knack for explaining things in terms that my audience can understand. I’m good with metaphors and can talk on different levels without talking down to people. This isn’t just my grossly inflated ego talking here, I hear this all the time in my professional life.

Which is why it’s incredibly frustrating to answer the same question over and over. After beating myself up over this fiasco I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s them, not me. Which is good for my blood pressure but doesn’t exactly solve the problem at hand.

Mickey Dolenz “Talk To The Animals” (Rex Harrison)
Solo albums from members of the Monkees haven’t become as legendary as the solo albums by the members of KISS, which is a damn shame. This is not only a bad cover in its own right but it’s also bogged down with incredibly dated 80s production values.

In my case I think I’d make more progress talking to animals than I have talking to the people I’ve had to deal with.

Dodo Hug “I Talk To The Wind” (King Crimson)
The lyrics to this song are so very appropriate:

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
The wind does not hear
The wind can not hear.

That’s exactly what’s been happening to me lately.

Danni Carlos “Don’t Speak” (No Doubt)
This song is saying not to speak because I don’t want to hear what you’re going to say. In my current circumstances I don’t want to speak because it only leads to frustration. At any rate I really like the Latin rhythms on this cover.

Talking Heads “Take Me To The River” (Al Green)
I generally try not to post well-known covers here at Cover Freak since I’m trying to present stuff that most folks haven’t heard before. But I’ve always liked what Talking Heads did with this song and I particularly like this version from their first live album The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads. Given that Al Green is a minister, the joyous gospel-style backing vocals are the perfect touch.

My iPod has been on an Ennio Morricone kick lately. It’s sad that there aren’t more covers of songs from the soundtracks to those Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns. So I’m compelled to post generic cowboy songs.

Leningrad Cowboys Feat. The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble “Happy Together” (The Turtles)
The Leningrad Cowboys aren’t cowboys and they aren’t from Leningrad either. They’re a Finnish band originally created by filmmaker Mato Valtonen. Their take on the Turtles classic is so demented it makes me laugh out loud.

Pansy Division “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other” (Ned Sublette)
What did you think those saddles and boots were about, anyway? It’s the perfect song for Pansy Division and they find just the right balance of light heartedness and rocking earnestness.

Pine Valley Cosmonauts “I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart” (Patsy Montana)
Roping, riding, the wind in your hair. It sounds great, as long as you can find a cowboy who’s not gay.

White Town “Rhinestone Cowboy” (Glen Campbell)
White Town is one guy, Jyoti Prakash Mishra, who was born in India and grew up in England. He does great things with cheesy synthesizers.

Cowboy Junkies “Powderfinger” (Neil Young)
The Cowboy Junkies do sometimes sound like they’ve done a little too much heroin, but this slowed-down version of the classic rock staple is wondrous. The interplay between the accordion and mandolin is absolutely beautiful.