And the hits just keep on coming, as I have convinced my friend Scott to cough up his top 5 cover songs for your perusal. His qualifications as a top five cover song compiler include quintessentially disdainful record store clerkage at both, if I recall correctly, Tower and Spirit records, in addition to having been basically, a guitar hero for 20 years, who made me my first mixed tape of the Rolling Stones, in his impeccable handwriting, when I was 17.

His list is cooler than mine, I readily acknowledge, since he is a guitarist, and I am, um, not. Take it away S-man:

Superchunk - Train From Kansas City (the Shangri-Las)

Ah, a 60's girl group song being covered by a 90's indie-rock band. It sounds like it would be awful, an exercise in smirky condescension and ironic hipsterism. But that's not what we get here. Superchunk was never a smirky or ironic band, so they play this with total emotional commitment, as if they wrote it themselves. Mac McCaughan sings the first-person lyrics - which are from a female perspective, and which can't possibly be gender-switched and still make sense - in their original, unaltered form, as if the possible awkwardness or humor of it doesn't even occur to him. And because of that, it doesn't occur to us either. McCaughan just sings it with his trademark plaintive, overwhelmed yelp, as if he's singing into a thunderstorm. And the band kicks ass, too. The drummer builds the song expertly, exploding into some dramatic fills at the end. I don't know where the hell the band found that guitar riff (is it even in the original version?), but by building the whole song around it here, it raises the tension in the song about a hundred times more than the lyric alone can do. And that lyric is a great one. It's one of the best examples of a "present tense" song lyric ever: the events are taking place as the song is happening, culminating in that fateful train pulling into the station, with no way out of the confrontation that's about to take place. I'm not one to quote lines from songs, but when our protagonist tells her fiancé I'll be back in the time it takes to break a heart ... damn, that's just about as plain as you can say it. Kudos to Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich for writing it, and to Superchunk for finding the heart of the song, and coming up with the definitive version.

The Melvins   - Youth of America (The Wipers)

I could have picked any one of the songs the Melvins have covered in their 20-plus-year career (Flipper's Sacrifice, Goin' Blind by Kiss, The Cows' Missing, etc.), but I'm going to go with this one, if only because it's a rare example of a version that's better than the original, despite there being nothing at all wrong with the original. The Melvins just Melvin-ize it, which means it's heavier and more aggressive than the Wipers' version, with a thicker sound and a better rhythmic sense, especially on the segues between sections. But the Melvins don't short-change the moody melodicism of the song, either, King Buzzo changing his guitar tone to suit each section, and singing those pessimistic yet strangely hopeful lyrics with the perfect combination of resignation and rage. Definitely an underrated singer, that Buzz. Dale Crover's performance on drums simply kicks the shit out of the original drum track, but then you'd expect that if you've ever heard Crover play drums before. But again, no disrespect to the Wipers version: they wrote a great song, and performed it well. But sometimes even a great song needs a little kick in the ass to make it be all that it can be. The Melvins do the kicking here, and it works wonders.

The Obsessed - On The Hunt (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Considering this is a song about a rock groupie, originally written and performed in the early 70's by a group of self-described rednecks, it's somewhat of a surprise that not only isn't it sexist, but it's actually somewhat tender, at least by southern rock / biker rock standards. Unlike every other song about "getting laid after the show", On The Hunt is actually about two scorned, ostracized people cut off from respectable society, outlaws who find each other, and who don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. Key lines: I know who you are / I know what they call you, girl / I'd never put you down, baby / Cause I'm just like you. The thing is, that lyric never stuck with me until I heard The Obsessed's Scott "Wino" Weinrich sing it, over twenty years later. And the reason for that is simple: Wino is a hell of a singer. Ronnie Van Zant was no slouch either of course, but in the original version, what comes across the most is the absolute blast the singer is having being in a rock band, being able to give the rest of the world the finger, and meeting cool chicks who know how to have a good time. The way Wino sings it, though, with his impossibly ancient, wise, and soulful voice, lets you really feel the lyric, his phrasing conjuring up images of endless highways and a million bars, as well as the loneliness of being an outcast from society, whether because you're a long-haired rock and roll singer, or because you're a woman who (gasp!) enjoys having sex. And that's just the lyric and the vocals. Instrumentally, the Obsessed are at peak form here as well, especially second drummer Dale Crover (that's right, the same guy from the Melvins, making a guest appearance here), whose bass pedal work is the epitome of heavy drumming, and Wino himself on guitar, who is just as godlike on the six-string as he is on the microphone. How in the word someone can be that awesome at both things? Hell if I know, but we should be thankful that the Gods of Rock, in their infinite wisdom, saw fit to put Wino on this earth. The Obsessed are no longer around, but any band Wino has been involved in since (The Hidden Hand, Spirit Caravan, Place of Skulls) is worth checking out.

Leatherface - True Colours (Cyndi Lauper)

I must have heard Cyndi Lauper's version a hundred times while I was growing up, but it never made the slightest impression on me. I don't think I ever even registered what any of the words were, beyond the chorus, or maybe just the title. So why did this out-of-left-field cover version from British punk band Leatherface (complete with an anglicized spelling of the word "colors") resonate with me so deeply, after just one listen? My guess is that again, it's the singer that made the difference. Lauper is an excellent singer, from what I can tell, but Leatherface vocalist Frankie Stubbs' voice is an absolute train wreck: a gravelly, asphyxiated wheeze that sounds like a lung is about to be coughed up at any moment. Seriously, it sounds like he's doing himself irreparable damage every time he opens his mouth. In comparison to Lauper's voice, or any other "real" singer, he is absolutely terrible by any technical standards. But the thing is, there is something very poignant and expressive about Stubbs' strangulated vocals - maybe because they're so technically bad. I mean, if someone is still making an attempt to sing even when they have a voice like that , then that must mean they have something important they really want to get across, right? Right. I think it was that quality that made me finally pay attention to the lyrics of the song when I heard Leatherface's version; as in pain as this guy sounded, I felt I owed it to him to check out what he was saying. And I'm glad I finally did, because this song has incredible lyrics, lyrics that will move you to tears with their plainspoken poetry. Don't believe me? Then do this. Cue up the song (Lauper's version or Leatherface's, whichever you prefer), and listen to it from beginning to end, without distraction, paying special attention to each line of the lyric. Pretend the singer is someone you love, singing directly to you. Forget about everything else but those words, coming from someone you would most like to hear them from. Can you imagine someone feeling that way about you? Someone telling you that, and meaning every word? Of course you can. We all can, and that's why we're miserable, because we know we'll never get it. Not from anyone, ever. That's what makes this song so beautiful, and so heartbreaking.

Crowbar - Dreamweaver (Gary Wright)

Crowbar are an ultra-heavy sludge / doom metal band from New Orleans, and about the last band on earth I can imagine covering a 70's soft-rock classic like Dreamweaver . But they did, and once again the key to the success of the cover version is that they play it straight, without any nudging or winking whatsoever. They don't change their style or their instrumentation in order to play the song as it was originally recorded; they adapt the song to their own style, and it's amazing how well it works. The loping bass line under the chorus in the original is here slowed down, the rhythm altered, giving it more of a dark, minor-key sound. The ecstatic, sunny feel of the original is replaced by a deeper, more cautiously optimistic tone, as Crowbar digs hidden meanings out of the lyrics, or rather different interpretations of the same lines. I believe you can get me through the night / I believe we can reach the morning light , goes the famous chorus. In Crowbar's version, they seize on the fear behind those lines, the fear of not making it through the night at all, a fear that the singer has been living with for so long that he can scarcely believe his good fortune in finally finding a savior, be it a person or thing (what the hell is a dreamweaver???). Gary Wright's version emphasizes the good fortune of the singer, while Crowbar's version dwells on the darkness the singer is escaping from, and his fear that this escape may be an illusion, or only temporary. It's significant that the song is written as a plea to the dreamweaver (whatever it/she is), and that despite all the wonderful things the singer is expecting will happen, they have not actually happened yet. Crowbar, to their credit, realized that it's the curious placement of the lyric at that anticipatory moment, instead of afterwards, that would let them find some darkness in what had previously been a pretty happy-sounding song. Well, that and the fact that they're an unrelentingly heavy, dark, doom-laden metal band, who probably couldn't sound sunny and light-hearted if they tried. Amazingly, gravel-throated singer Kirk Windstein hits all the high notes perfectly (especially the ones at the end of the song), even though most of Crowbar's own material doesn't really require melodic singing. It's a nice surprise, as if someone you've known for ten years suddenly displayed a heretofore unknown talent, like knowing how to ice-skate backwards, or how to do that magic trick where you pull a quarter out of someone's ear.

OK, well, I can think of lots more great ones, but that's five so that's it. I'll just give honorable mention status to Grand Funk Railroad's version of "Inside Looking Out," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and the Ramones' version of "Surfing Bird," three of my other favorites.

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