Hallelujah « Wonderland or Not

Posts Tagged ‘Hallelujah’

Love Hurts on Old School Friday, Hallelujah

Friday, January 30th, 2009

The theme this week is original versus covers. Hours could be spent looking through cover songs. I usually prefer originals, but there are the obvious cover winners, like Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”, where Dolly has the heart, but Whitney has the pipes, and Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Dylans’ “All Along the Watchtower”, for starters. There are unbeatable originals, like “I Shot the Sheriff”. Some songs will forever belong to their original performer. The sheer number of covers songs makes it difficult to choose, and because of that I decided to go with a couple of songs I either didn’t know were cover songs or didn’t know had been covered.

Love Hurts, absolutely, but did you know it was was originally an Everly Brothers song? I didn’t.

This clip is a compilation of the songs covers — the first part is the Everly Brothers version. It’s the only one I could find with an Everly Brothers rendition.

Nazereth’s version has become the standard bearer.

Did you know Paul Anka covered Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Nor did I, thank goodness. I still don’t know whether to applaud, laugh, cry or vomit.

The original video/recording is here.

This is Paul Anka’s version, and frankly it kind of creeps me out, but I wanted to share it. What the hell is Paul Anka doing smelling teen spirit anyway?

This is to make up for the nightmare swing version of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

In conclusion, and after much concentrated listening I’ve also come to agree with those who designate Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah the best version.