I was joking around with my twin daughters last night about music and starting up a band (one more than a passable singer, the other plays flute and piano). They are toying around with starting up a cover band that does 80s songs in their own style and with their own instrumentation and in the middle of the discussion I smacked my forehead and cussed.
“Total missed opportunity,” I said. “I wish I would have thought about it when I was playing with various bands when I was younger.”
“What?” they asked, in unison.
“Love Will Keep Us Together,” I said. “It so would have made a great punk or goth song.”
“Or folk cover,” said one of them, knowing that I used to regularly ruin songs in my folk duo, as much to annoy the other guy as to get giggles from the crowd when he would get visibly annoyed at my antics. He hated Nirvana. He hated Owner of a Lonely Heart. He took too much time to tune between songs, which annoyed me, so I decided to add filler while he tuned. He really would have hated me playing Love Will Keep Us Together.
“I wonder,” I asked aloud. “I wonder if anyone gave it the punk treatment?”
I found two whole “alternative” variants of the song. One live version by a band I’d not heard of which was more rock than punk. Serviceable, but not punk. I found another which was done with more of that 90s grunge sound, which is still not really punk. Such untapped potential!
I’m not sure how accurate it is, but the closest I can come with goth is Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, which at least several sites claim was an intentional inversion of Love Will Keep Us Together. It’s news to me, but I am willing to admit that the information might have flown under my radar if it came to me.
But… Imagine the Kennedys, The Replacements or Hüsker Dü doing a cover… Or some no-name dive bar punk act that imploded before their third paid gig (whistles in the dark)… How cool would that have been?
What covers do you wish someone would have taken and completely subverted the original genre? There are plenty of cases where bands have played the cover straight, but what’s your favorite subversion (one of mine is The Cure playing Do You Wanna Touch Me (Joan Jett), but that was hardly a huge subversion. Gimme unsung covers that totally changed the sound below (like the theme from Mary Tyler Moore).
38 responses to “Half-penny thoughts — 13jun26”
Sex Pistols covering My Way. I thought Do You Wanna Touch Me was…erm .. a Gary Glitter song… But we can’t really mention him these days… You know. Then Marilyn Manson covered Tainted Love… See above…
That’s right. Glitter did it. Joan did a version of it though, or so I thought.
My Way, definitely.
Chuck in Joan with Paul on “Let’s Fall In Love” to make up for the flub on my part.
Joan is amazing. I love that she produced Rebel Girl for Bikini Kill too 😍
There’s also the Pistols “Friggin in the Riggin”.
That counts as a cover, I expect. 🙂
Yep, definitely! Haha
The Dollyrots “Holding Out for a Hero?” Not only punked it up, but changed the ‘hero’ from a guy to a girl. Ghost does a sweet version of “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” Hmm. Not sure what’s up with the Hero theme.
I’ll have to check those out.
I like the Dollyrots quite much. Thanks Little Steven!
Interesting take on the song.
I don’t have a suggestion that’s already been done, but how about a wish? I absolutely despise “C’mon Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners. It makes me want to hurl 🤮every time I have the misfortune of hearing it. Would LOVE to hear it punked up. 😀
I wonder if someone hasn’t. LOL. Another missed opportunity at least with the folk band I was in. Would have driven him bonkers.
If not… Toora loora toora loo rye aye…
I don’t know whether to 🤣 or 🤮!
Both?
Wouldn’t mind hearing The Cure cover ‘Making Your Mind Up’ by Bucks Fizz!
I wasn’t familiar with that one and, after listening to it, I could see Bob Smith going for it “just because”. 😂
🤣 I’m surprised you didn’t know the song. Perhaps it’s a British thing!
Eurovision has only JUST started becoming an interesting thing to people on this side of the pond. It just never got any airplay and that was probably the time when I was just young enough to have not had many alternate information sources for music yet.
Oh, how you’ve missed out 🤣
Not to worry, I’m sure the US will soon be invited to participate – after all Israel and Australia are now parts of Europe 🤣
Because England is just the 51st State, right?
Oh wait. That’s Venezuela this week, right? No… Greenland? Canada! Wait.
I’m confused.
We’ll just lump in everyone so I needn’t worry about geography. ‘Tis silly stuff, these things.
🤣
Oh. You’re just jealous we had those cage matches this weekend.
🤣And so much more!🤣
So much winning.
And yet so much losing. A matter of perspective!
But…. Cage matches….
🤣
That is amazing. Husker Du covering the Mary Tyler Moore theme. Just brilliant.
It’s probably my favorite cover of the era.
I just tried to find it on Spotify. Couldn’t find it. I’ll keep checking.
Give this a whirl: https://open.spotify.com/track/1hPGdLNzdtHSQzcEf3HvGS
Thank you!! Saving that song to my favorites.
My latest taste favours deathcore but that’s a bit difficult to sing 🙂
I could see a deathcore version of say… “When Doves Cry”.
😂
Lorna Shore style 🙂
That would be amusing. 🤣
I’m giggling a lot. 😊 I’ll have to look up the Love Will Keep Us Together covers.
Side Note: Fall Out Boy covered Love Will Tear Us Apart 🙂
I think I saw that in my scanning through for unusual covers. I might have to check it out.