Chicago is located at the point where the Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan. As the city grew a small problem reared its head. The city used the river as an open sewer and used the lake for drinking water. As you might expect that was not good for the quality of the city’s drinking water. The city fathers could have decided to clean up the river and build a sewage treatment system to handle the waste. But for some reason they decided it would be easier to attempt a massive engineering feat that had never been done before, and so they reversed the flow of the river. That had the added benefit of making the sewage the suburbs’ problem.

I’ve been thinking about that lately and when I start thinking about something it usually ends with a Cover Freak post.

Potliquor “Old Man River” (from the musical Showboat)
This early-70s recording is definitely of its time. It’s melodramatic proto-Southern rock. I’ve edited out the solemn recitation of “Dixie” that begins this extravaganza on the original record. No need to thank me.

Buddy Miles “Down By The River” (Neil Young)
Neil Young’s music just sounds so cool with wah-wah guitars and cooing chick background singers.

Waco Brothers “Big River” (Johnny Cash)
The Wacos are one of my favorite live bands and here they give the Johnny Cash classic a muscular workout. We’ve all been in a relationship where at some point you realize that the other person isn’t into the relationship as much as you are. That can be tough to deal with, but it’s much harder when you realize that your woman loves a river more than you. How do you compete with a river? You can’t even beat it up to make yourself feel better.

An American Warewolf “Moon River” (Audrey Hepburn)
This tune features a very spare arrangement, just a slowly plucked guitar and a woman with a glorious voice. It has everything it needs and nothing that it doesn’t.

Man Chao Po Orchestra “A-Go-Go River Kwai” (Mitch Miller)
This song is a weird choice for a Chinese orchestra trying to work the Asian go-go thing. After all the song comes from a movie about British prisoners of war building a bridge for the Japanese in Thailand during World War II. And you generally don’t hear a lot of go-go bands playing marches. Non-Brits might be interested to know that this tune is popular in Britain as “Hitler Only Has One Ball.” Apparently the director wanted to include a vocal version in the movie Bridge On The River Kwai but was talked out of it. Damn shame if you ask me.

One of my passions outside of cover songs is baseball, and in particular fantasy baseball. I helped found a Rotisserie league over twenty years ago and last week I won my league championship. This is almost as good as when I won the championship the same year young Freakette was born. I’m very happy and very proud of myself and I’m going to shout it from the top of the tallest gasoline refinery in town. Hopefully things will work out better for me than they did for James Cagney.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjVWORC3Wcc

Shonen Knife “Top Of The World” (The Carpenters)
The original version was happy enough but this one is positively joyous. The world’s greatest Japanese girl pop group sounds elated to be on top of the world. As am I.

Susanna And The Magical Orchestra “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Want To Rock And Roll)” (AC/DC)
Bon Scott almost bragged about being ripped off and abused by record labels, concert promoters and other lowlifes as he celebrated his ability to rise above those hardships and find success in the music business. Susanna Karolina Wallumrød takes a much more thoughtful approach, pondering every screwjob and wondering if it was all worth it in the end.

The Bobs “Lonely At The Top” (Randy Newman)
Randy Newman wrote this song for Frank Sinatra, who apparently lacked a sense of irony and refused to sing it. Too bad, because it would have been fun to hear the Bobs sing against his version. Check out the subsonic low notes Richard Bob hits. I feel sorry for his house pets when he sings in the shower.

The Oath “We Are The Champions” (Queen)
I was a big Queen fan when I was in high school, which wasn’t easy when all my peers were devoted to the Holy Trinity of the Who, the Stones, and Led Zeppelin. I never liked this song though. It always seemed very calculated to be played at sports venues to rack up royalty payments. The Oath completely deconstructs it into a barely-listenable noise soundscape. Somewhere Freddie Mercury is spinning in his grave.

Ksine “My Way” (Frank Sinatra)
Here’s a song that Sinatra didn’t like (he found it pretentious) but sang anyway. In terms of attitude and irony I prefer the Sid Vicious version but this one has a nice bouncy rhythm and beautiful washes of distorted electric guitars.

R.E.M. called it quits last week after roughly thirty years as a band. That’s a long life for a rock band, especially since three of the original four members were there for the duration. It’s been some time since they were musically interesting although they’ve still been commercially successful, sort of like a postpunk Eric Clapton. They certainly released a lot of interesting music over the years, some of which is covered in this post.

Liz Durrett “The One I Love” (R.E.M.)
You can learn the most interesting things on Wikipedia. For instance, did you know that the director of photography for this song’s video went on to be a chef on the Food Network? The same article also has a great quote from Michael Stipe that “it’s probably better that they just think it’s a love song at this point.”

This hushed lyrics and spacious arrangement really up the creepiness quotient. And I mean that in a good way.

Penn Shabbatones “Shiny Happy People” (R.E.M.)
One of R.E.M.’s big hits after they became more interested in traditional song structure and songcraft. Despite its popularity the song received a decidedly mixed reception. The irony of the lyrics was apparently lost on people on both sides of the the divide. It works well as an a capella song though.

Grant-Lee Phillips “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” (R.E.M.)
There aren’t a lot of covers of songs from the first couple of R.E.M. albums, maybe because they weren’t big pop hits, maybe because of the strange way those albums were mixed. This song comes from Mr. Phillips’ album of 80s covers and it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to understand the lyrics.

The Shout Out Louds “Man On The Moon” (R.E.M.)
This is my second-favorite song about Andy Kaufman, my favorite being “Andy Always Dreamed Of Wrestling” by the Bobs. I really wish somebody would cover that one, but I digress. R.E.M.’s video for this song was one of the first that I ever saw on Pop Up Video, which I miss dearly. After seeing that I understood more about both the song and the video.

This version has absolutely wonderful percolating percussion throughout.

Bingo Hand Job “Tom’s Diner” (Suzanne Vega)
Bingo Hand Job is R.E.M. playing a supposedly secret show in London. The folks in R.E.M. had a good sense of humor that they didn’t exhibit as often as I might have liked. This wacky live version is from the album Tom’s Album which collected the original version, the famous remix by DNA, and other covers.

Hi, Bob: Awhile back I wrote about Bob, a client who mysteriously went missing. A few folks have since written asking what happened to Bob. He called me last week and I’m happy to say that he’s not dead. He tells me that he was helping his wife with her business and his own business got away from him. I’m not sure if I believe that, but he paid me what he owed me and is talking about new projects, so I’m okay with his story.

…

Some readers may recall the difficulty I had deciding to shutter my consulting business and take a job with a large soulless corporation. I agreed to a six-month contract-to-hire deal and now that the six months are done (and the project they brought me in to work on is a smashing success) they’ve decided not to hire me after all. Yes, we’ve all been screwed by The Man at one time or another and now it’s my turn. But I don’t have to be happy about it. I’m not as enraged about it as I was last week, but I’m still in the mood for some angry music.

Most of the angry music out there is directed at former significant others, so this could also be viewed as a really early Twisted Cover Freak Valentine’s Day Post, except for the fact that this week does not feature “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss).” I can’t tell you how happy Mrs. Freak is I’m not posting that song this week.

A Day To Remember “Since U Been Gone” (Kelly Clarkson)
This cover is more guitar oriented than the original and features death-metal vocal stylings that really add to the anger. The sentiment here is that you’re gone and I’m better off but I’m still mighty pissed. That’s the attitude I’m trying to maintain toward my former corporate masters.

Jonathan Coulton “You Oughta Know” (Alanis Morrisette)
Ms. Morrisette was really quite angry back in the day. She seems to have mellowed a bit over the years. This song is notable not only for its bitterness but also for telling us far more than we ever wanted to know about her sex life. I like listening to it as a sensitive singer-songwriter tune.

Glen Hansard “Cry Me A River” (Justin Timberlake)
Glen Hansard is famous for being half of The Swell Season and the leader of The Frames. He also won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2007. The man’s a huge talent. And he does a wonderful stripped-down version of this song.

Alias Ron Kavana “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” (Bruce Cockburn)
I was a college radio disk jockey when this song came out in 1984 and I got a chance to to a phone interview with Mr. Cockburn. He was a very nice and thoughtful man. When I mentioned that this song seemed like a strange choice for the first single from the album Stealing Fire he agreed with me, saying that he thought “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” would have been a more obvious choice.

Lucky Uke “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (Twisted Sister)
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I paid money to see Twisted Sister play. Well, I actually paid to see Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister was the opening act. They weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. They were fun as long as you didn’t take them seriously.

This song is absolutely hilarious on the ukulele.

Last weekend Mrs. Freak and young Freakette went camping with several families with whom we’re friendly. I don’t camp, Mrs. Freak knew that before she married me. When she came back Mrs. Freak commented that the group’s ethnic composition resembled a Benetton commercial. With that in mind I present the United Colors of Cover Freak.

Joel Grey “White Room” (Cream)
Kind of a two-fer here between the artist and the song. I understand the desire to appeal to a younger audience, especially with your original demographic dropping dead from chain smoking filterless cigarettes during the 50s. But this was not the way to do it. The string-soaked tinkley piano bar arrangement would be bad enough without without Mr. Gray trying to hit those high notes. Jack Bruce he ain’t.

Robbie Fulks “Black Or White” (Michael Jackson)
This comes from the extremely excellent Michael Jackson tribute album Mr. Fulks put out called Happy. He does a great job of stripping away the layers of production, bombast, and disco to expose the well-written pop songs beneath.

Petty Booka “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (Brian Hyland)
Part of this song is in English and part isn’t. I’m not sure if they’re singing in their native Japanese or in Hawaiian. Either way it’s a wonderful happy song.

Paul Kelly “Little Red Corvette” (Prince)
Prince is another artist who writes terrific pop songs but isn’t exactly subtle in his arrangements. This acoustic arrangement shows what a talent Prince really is.

The Hassles “Coloured Rain” (Traffic)
The Hassles sound like a lot of other organ-based bands from the late 60s. Their music is notable for containing the first recorded performances of Billy Joel. That’s right, that’s the Piano Man playing that bombastic Hammond organ. I’m not a huge fan of his, but I think he made the right decision as far as his musical direction goes.