It seems that every few years synthesizers come into or out of fashion. Either it’s some hot new disco-tronic band making them cool or it’s an earnest guy with a guitar leading a backlash against them. Let’s just celebrate them for the flexibility they offer creative musicians.

Lulu Hughes “Time” (Pink Floyd)
This is one of the best Pink Floyd covers ever. A mopey self-pitying song (I know, that could describe almost any Pink Floyd song) gets a serious kick in the ass here. It sounds like Pink Floyd’s background singers locked the band in a closet and commandeered the recording studio.

Gary Schneider “Sweet Georgia Brown” (Ben Bernie)
I’ve posted songs from Mr. Schneider in the past which has led to some wonderful email exchanges with him. He told me that he was a “tacky lounge entertainer” in the 70s. I just love that kind of honesty. He was a one-man band with his keyboard and an array of electronic gadgets he built himself. He was recording music in his living room and self-releasing his music long before it was cool. He’s a charming man who deserves a wider audience for his work.

Battery “Gangsta’s Paradise” (Coolio)
It’s really tough to maintain any sort of street cred when you’re singing over a mid-tempo synth riff. The song sounds much less angry than the original, almost philosophical as the gangsta looks back on his life.

Christopher Scott “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” (Dionne Warwick)
This comes from the immortal Switched-On Bacharach album. That’s really a pretty interesting album because of all the different sounds and arrangements on it. This song is arranged for an imaginary Caribbean steel band.

Soft Cell “Where Did Our Love Go” (The Supremes)
Soft Cell’s first big hit in the 80s was “Tainted Love.” It became so popular that many people think it was an original song and there are many lame covers that mindlessly ape the Soft Cell version. For the record the song was originally recorded by Gloria Jones. At any rate the 12″ single of “Tainted Love” included a version that segued into “Where Did Our Love Go” by the Supremes. Because that song is nine minutes long it never got much radio airplay. Since everybody has heard the first part of that medley ten thousand times I’ve edited the extended version so you can now listen to just “Where Did Our Love Go.”

Tuesday marked the start of the school year for the public schools in Chicago, although my daughter started last week because we live in the suburbs. That’s as good a reason as any to celebrate education with music.

Moby “Verb: That’s What’s Happening” (From Schoolhouse Rock)
When I think of Moby I don’t think of a rockin’ beat and all sorts of wailing distorted guitars. It’s really quite cool, especially if you grew up with Schoolhouse Rock. For you youngsters out there, Schoolhouse Rock was a series of short cartoons that ran in between the regular Saturday morning TV cartoons. Each episode featured a song about science, math, grammar, or American history. I can still recite the preamble of the Constitution thanks to those cartoons.

Devil In A Woodpile “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” (Sonny Boy Williamson)
The ad campaign for Gossip Girl uses the tagline “every parent’s nightmare.” Having your daughter bring home Rick “Cookin'” Sherry would be a much worse nightmare. He sounds so sleazy.

Manhead “Birth, School, Work, Death” (The Godfathers)
Here the most nihilistic sing-along ever gets turned into a smooth nihilistic dance number. I guess the guys in the Godfathers weren’t looking forward to a fulfilling retirement after they were done with work.

Christy Carlson Romano “Teacher’s Pet” (Doris Day)
Ms. Romano sounds like such a dedicated student. She makes me want to take up a career in education.

Richard Cheese “Hot For Teacher” (Van Halen)
There was a young woman who taught English at my high school. She was kinda cute. Not a great beauty, but since it was an all-boys Catholic school she was easily the best-looking woman in the school. She was pretty much the only woman in the school. She had problems controlling the adolescent boys in her class.

One day while she was talking in front of the class her blouse started coming unbuttoned. One button, then the next and the next. She wasn’t wearing a bra so she flashed the whole class. The class went uncharacteristically silent as we all held our breath, gaping in disbelief and wondering how long this would go on. She seemed unaware of what was happening. She walked around with her blouse hanging open for about a half hour, until she finally figured it out and picked up a book from her desk to hold against her chest. She soldiered on through the last five minutes of class as if nothing were amiss. I was amazed by her ability to maintain her composure.

That was the only convincing demonstration of telekinesis that I have ever personally witnessed. I have no other explanation for it. I’ve always wondered what made her decide to go to work at an all-boys high school without a bra. At any rate it was the closest I’ve ever come to being in a Van Halen video.

Songwriting is hard. Let me rephrase that. Writing a good song is hard, writing a bad song is amazingly easy and quite a popular pastime. I thought of that after hearing “Windmills Of Your Mind” for the first time in a long time. So let’s once again put the heads of lyrical offenders on sticks as a warning to others.

Vanilla Fudge “Windmills Of Your Mind” (Noel Harrison)
Can you believe that this piece of crap won the Oscar for best original song in 1968? Granted it was competing against “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” but that’s no excuse. “The world is like an apple whirling silently in space?” The most evil thing about this song is that it gets stuck in your head and makes you think you’re schizophrenic. The spacey gibberish of the lyrics actually works pretty well with the Fudge treatment.

Gruppo Sportivo “Horse With No Name” (America)
This song might have worse lyrics than “Windmills,” if that’s possible. Yes, you can describe the desert by saying “there were plants and birds and rocks and things.” But you can also describe the Amazon rainforest, the Rocky Mountains, and my back yard the same way. And when is the heat ever not hot?

Gruppo Sportivo was a wacky Dutch art-rock band that I discovered when I was a college radio DJ. They always seemed to me like a Euro version of the Tubes. And that’s a good thing.

Bunny Rugs and the Upsetters “I Am I Said” (Neil Diamond)
This song comes up in any discussion of bad lyrics, mainly due to the poetry of “I am, I said/ To no one there/ And no one heard at all/ Not even the chair.” There are other words that rhyme with “there” and most of them would have made more sense if Mr. Diamond had put just a little effort into it. “So I combed my hair.” “I was mauled by a bear.” Try it as a party game the next time you get together with friends.

Pastel Vespa “Ironic” (Alanis Morrissette)
Dictionary.com has this to say:

The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply “coincidental” or “improbable,” in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly

The firefighter who lived next door to me had his house burn down. He was on duty at the time. That’s ironic because he made his living protecting other people’s homes from fire but couldn’t protect his own. Rain on your wedding day is not ironic, it’s coincidental. Get the difference, Alanis?

13 Nightmares “Everything I Own” (Bread)
The singer says that he would give up everything he owns, including his life, to get his woman back. Here’s the thing: if you give up your life to get somebody back you’ll be dead. And your ex-girlfriend probably isn’t into necrophilia.

When I started Cover Freak I was posting songs from my vast personal archives. I was afraid that I would get cease-and-desist orders from record labels and be forced to shut down before long. Little did I know that not only would I never get a nasty-gram from a record label lawyer (knock on wood), but I would have artists, publicists, and even record labels sending me songs to post. The experience has been both gratifying and unexpected, and most of the songs have been very good. Here’s a sample of stuff that I’ve been sent recently.

BTW, if you’re a publicist and I ask you for either an mp3 or a CD so I can rip my own mp3 there are two things you can do: send me the material that I requested or leave me alone. Either response is acceptable. The publicist for an older performer trying to resurrect his career with a covers album seems to find this concept elusive.

Judson Claiborne “Ring The Bells” (James)
I’m very happy to post this song. Judson Claiborne is a Chicago musician, his publicist works for Touch And Go Records, and he plays a freaking ukulele! It’s like some evil scientist in a lab somewhere engineered the song I couldn’t refuse to post. And it’s a great, charming tune as well.

Dusty Wright “Mercedes Benz” (Janis Joplin)
Last month I posted the GIANTfingers version of “Baby’s On Fire.” Then one of the guys from the band sent me this nice roots-rock song from his solo album. It feels like a complete song as opposed to the original, which sounded like a tossed-off joke. Check out his web site, there’s some interesting stuff there.

The Polka Floyd Show “See Emily Play” (Pink Floyd)
This band’s publicist sent me a cryptic email asking me if I wanted to hear some unique Pink Floyd covers. I replied in the affirmative and then the mailman brought me the Polka Floyd CD. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.

elodieO “Home” (The Cure)
elodiO sings stylish Euro-synth songs, mostly in French. Too bad she chose to sing this song in English. If she sang it in French it would be the sexiest Cure song ever, hands down. It’s still pretty sexy though.

George Kahn “Sunshine Of Your Love” (Cream)
It’s sad that Eric Clapton has become so lame over the last twenty years or so. This cool jazz tune from George Kahn reminds me of what a vital musician he was before drugs and fame took their toll.

Anders Holst “All About Soul” (Billy Joel)
I’m honestly not big on the whole “smooth jazz” thing. I pretty much prefer any other kind of music. And the description of this guy by his publicist as “the Sting of Stockholm” ain’t exactly a ringing endorsement in my book. Nevertheless I have to admit that Anders Holst makes this Billy Joel song his own, which is what Cover Freak is all about.

By now everybody knows that Isaac Hayes dropped dead while jogging on his treadmill at home last week. Not quite how I expected Black Moses to check out.

Stax Records never would have been half as great without his contributions as a songwriter, arranger, and musician. Of course a whole new generation of fans has come to know him as the beloved Chef from South Park, always ready with a completely inappropriate song for the children. So let’s celebrate the career of one of the true giants of soul music.

Isaac Hayes “The Look Of Love” (Dusty Springfield)
This might just be the ultimate Isaac Hayes song. It starts with a long, wah-wah drenched instrumental passage before his soothing voice comes in almost halfway through. It’s just perfect.

Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick “Feelings” (Morris Albert)
I’ve always thought that this was one of the cheesiest, sappiest songs ever to emerge from the world of adult contemporary radio. But Mr. Hayes and Ms. Warwick turn it into a very moving song.

Isaac Hayes “Ain’t No Sunshine” (Bill Withers)
At eleven minutes, this is easily the longest song I’ve ever posted. It’s a live workout that features a long introductory rap from Mr. Hayes.

Solomon Burke “Hold On I’m Comin'” (Sam And Dave)
Isaac Hayes wrote many of Sam and Dave’s big hits. Solomon Burke almost makes this one sound like something Chef would have recorded. All that’s missing is the wah-wah guitar.

Sammy Davis Jr. “Theme From Shaft” (Isaac Hayes)
How can a black man sing an Isaac Hayes song and sound so completely, hopelessly white? What did Frank Sinatra do to this poor man out in the desert?

Van McCoy “Theme From Shaft/Lara’s Theme” (Isaac Hayes/Dr. Zhivago soundtrack)
Thanks to Uncle Flakey for cluing me in to this exciting disco medley.