"Cover"
Richard Fontana
>Am I the only one who is annoyed by the term "cover" as it seems to be
>used in pop music circles? Apparently, whenever someone other than the
>original performer performs a song, it is said that they're "covering" it
>or doing a "cover" of it. What is the etymology of that? Why "cover"?
>More to the point, why is this term even necessary? It seems to imply
>that the first performer of a work automatically has a more valid
>interpretation of it than anybody else. What rubbish. When the Chicago
>Symphony performs Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, should we say they're
>"covering" it, because the work was commissioned by the Boston Symphony?
Here's what the OED says:
f. In full
cover version. A recording of a song, etc., which has already been
recorded by someone else.
* 1966 Melody Maker 23 July 12/2 This is a cover version of the new
Beach Boys single from some friends and admirers, the Castaways.
* 1968 Listener 7 Nov. 622/3 The jackal thinking behind cover
versions, which are near copies of original recordings, is
predicated on the belief that so much money is showered in the
general direction of hit records that any performance of the song
will collect if sufficiently adjacent.
* 1968 Listener, 7 Nov. 622/3 It's a popular misconception that the
original version of a song must be better than a cover.
* 1970 Melody Maker 19 Dec. 31 Among the biggest sellers this
Christmas will be the `Hits' albums-cover versions of Top 30
records.
* 1970 Melody Maker 31/7 Lewis was an originator of these `covers'.
And the verb:
i. To make a cover version (cover sb.1 1 f) of (a song, etc.).
* 1965 L. Huntley Lang. Music Business 90 A phonograph record
company is said to cover the recording of another phonograph
record company when it releases a competitive recording of the
same song.
* 1975 R. S. Denisoff Solid Gold i. 10 Many acts popular in
MOR..have made it a practice to `cover' or copy the current hits
in their more traditional styles.
* 1977 Chapple & Garofalo Rock'n'Roll is here to Stay ii. 238
Mercury's Georgia Gibbs covered Etta James' `Wallflower' with a
cleaned up version called `Dance with Me Henry'.
This doesn't quite explain how the term arose, though. Anyway, it does
seem to be a post-Sputnik pop music thing.
Jack Gavin
news:slrna34ukh....@localhost.localdomain...
>
> This doesn't quite explain how the term arose, though. Anyway, it does
> seem to be a post-Sputnik pop music thing.
I got the impression that the "cover version" was usually produced for a
different audience, as when a nice white boy like Elvis would cover a black
man's blues song (for those customers who did not frequent the "race
records" section of the store).
Or as when Jose Feliciano did Jim Morrison's "Light my fire".
Like that. Just an impression, though.
--
Jack Gavin
Mark Brader
>> Am I the only one who is annoyed by the term "cover" as it seems
>> to be used in pop music circles?
Well, it's not as annoying as the use of "prototype" in model railway
circles. If you don't know, try to guess; explanation below[2].
>> Apparently, whenever someone other than the original performer
>> performs a song, it is said that they're "covering" it or doing
>> a "cover" of it. What is the etymology of that? Why "cover"?
Huntley Lang (via the OED and Richard Fontana):
# * 1965 L. Huntley Lang. Music Business 90 A phonograph record
# company is said to cover the recording of another phonograph
# record company when it releases a competitive recording of
# the same song.
My assumption, and it is only an assumption, is that the key word
here is "competitive". When a cover version is released, it may
get played on the radio, or explicitly advertised, where otherwise
the original one might have been. So the new version attracts some
of the listening public's attention[1] that would otherwise have
gone to the original one. The original is metaphorically blocked
from public view -- or "covered".
[1] Hmm, interesting. An ambiguous expression, but with essentially
the same meaning no matter whether you parse "some of" as modifying
"public" or "attention".
[2] A real railway (or train, station, etc.) -- after all, they only
exist for the purpose of being modeled, right?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "You are not the customer,
m...@vex.net you are the product."
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Stephen Toogood
Fontana <rfon...@wesleyan.edu> writes
...
[snips galore]
>
>This doesn't quite explain how the term arose, though.
Does it by any chance correspond chronologically with the decline of
what crooners still call a 'standard'? Before this, I don't think people
really regarded a song as being anybody's 'possession' other than the
composer's. Songwriters may have had a specific performer in mind, but
mostly wrote the song hoping that they would decide to perform it. If my
guess is correct, songs were published before they were recorded.
These days it seems the whole business is driven from the performing
end, and nobody knows who wrote the song.
As for etymology, the meanings 'to hide', 'to provide for or against',
'to play a higher card upon', seem to provided plausible possibilities,
as pointed out somewhere up the thread.
>Anyway, it does
>seem to be a post-Sputnik pop music thing.
How about 'post-Telstar'?
--
Stephen Toogood
Spooky Guy Next Door
(co...@caulkins.org) posted the following...
> Am I the only one who is annoyed by the term "cover" as it seems to be
> used in pop music circles? Apparently, whenever someone other than the
> original performer performs a song, it is said that they're "covering" it
> or doing a "cover" of it. What is the etymology of that? Why "cover"?
> More to the point, why is this term even necessary? It seems to imply
> that the first performer of a work automatically has a more valid
> interpretation of it than anybody else. What rubbish. When the Chicago
> Symphony performs Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, should we say they're
> "covering" it, because the work was commissioned by the Boston Symphony?
I think it came from back when people were getting interested in "black
music" (early rock'n'roll, some jazz). 'Twas too difficult for the nice,
comfortable white USAian public[0] to swallow the concept of listening to
black performers. So many songs were re-recorded by a more "safe" white
singer - they were the same song, but the cover displayed Buddy Holly
instead of the original performer.
[0] Before Tony says anything, I'll just point out that this could quite
likely have occurred anywhere in the Western world around the
fifties. Rampant racism was certainly not confined to the USA.
However, the US *was* the "birthplace of rock'n'roll" (as I once
heard some fool hepped up on Patriotism with a capital "P" say,
whilst compiling a list of reasons why the USA is better than
anywhere else) and as such it stood out more starkly in this
instance.
--
The ideas expressed in the above post are my own, with the possible
exception of the one involving a scarecrow and a stick of butter.
blog - http://www.cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/
cyberfuddle - http://www.cyberfuddle.com/
learn HTML - http://smiley.vh.mewl.net/markhtml/
Richard Fontana
>In article <slrna34ukh....@localhost.localdomain>, Richard
>Fontana <rfon...@wesleyan.edu> writes
>...
>[snips galore]
>>
>>This doesn't quite explain how the term arose, though.
>
>Does it by any chance correspond chronologically with the decline of
>what crooners still call a 'standard'?
Could be. 'Standard' continues to be used in jazz (referring to an
overlapping body of material), but in pop music, outside a subset of what
now seems to be known as the "vocals" genre, it was gone. "Cover" is, to
the best of my knowledge, not used in jazz.
> Before this, I don't think people
>really regarded a song as being anybody's 'possession' other than the
>composer's. Songwriters may have had a specific performer in mind, but
>mostly wrote the song hoping that they would decide to perform it. If my
>guess is correct, songs were published before they were recorded.
I think you may be right about that.
>These days it seems the whole business is driven from the performing
>end, and nobody knows who wrote the song.
Doesn't Britney Spears have this battery of Swedish songwriters, ABBA
veterans some of them, who write her material?
Richard Fontana
>
>I think it came from back when people were getting interested in "black
>music" (early rock'n'roll, some jazz). 'Twas too difficult for the nice,
>comfortable white USAian public[0] to swallow the concept of listening to
>black performers. So many songs were re-recorded by a more "safe" white
>singer - they were the same song, but the cover displayed Buddy Holly
>instead of the original performer.
This is often claimed, but I think it's somewhat inaccurate. I think a
lot of those white people just didn't like the rhythm 'n' blues style of
the original versions. Not so much because the performers were black,
since the cover-ers didn't just copy the material word for word, note for
note -- they transformed it stylistically. The white performers who
provided the early "covers" created versions more consistent with norms of
standard mainstream pop music at the time, or created versions
incorporating stylistic features from 'white' genres like bluegrass and so
forth.
Donna Richoux
> In article <slrna34ukh....@localhost.localdomain>, Richard
> Fontana <rfon...@wesleyan.edu> writes
> ...
> [snips galore]
> >
> >This doesn't quite explain how the term arose, though.
>
> Does it by any chance correspond chronologically with the decline of
> what crooners still call a 'standard'? Before this, I don't think people
> really regarded a song as being anybody's 'possession' other than the
> composer's. Songwriters may have had a specific performer in mind, but
> mostly wrote the song hoping that they would decide to perform it. If my
> guess is correct, songs were published before they were recorded.
>
> These days it seems the whole business is driven from the performing
> end, and nobody knows who wrote the song.
You lost me on that last bit. Don't you mean, the standard assumption
these days is that singers and groups write their own songs? As opposed
to the way it was before Dylan and the Beatles.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Richard Fontana
I think it depends on the particular subgenre of pop music. When you hear
a Beatles song you've never heard before, if you know the Beatles, you can
assume it's an "original", and you can tell whether, as is usually the
case, it's Lennon/McCartney (and, in that case, whether it's really
Lennon or McCartney) or a George Harrison song -- this has to do
with being able to recognize the voices and styles. Bob Dylan's an even
easier case; you can usually assume that he wrote whatever song he's
singing.
But in the poppier areas of modern pop music -- maybe this was less so in
the Beatles' day and Dylan's primary day -- you can't make any assumption
like that. If anything, you probably have to assume that the performer
*didn't* write the song. They have a modern class of professional
songwriters to do that. In other subgenres of course you *can* assume
that the performers are also the songwriters.
perchprism
"Stephen Toogood" <ste...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:WPEZSuAO...@stenches.demon.co.uk...
> How about 'post-Telstar'?
And thus show we our age! I have a feeling there's a sharp cut-off for this
one.
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
Stephen Toogood
Fontana <rfon...@wesleyan.edu> writes
>
>Doesn't Britney Spears have this battery of Swedish songwriters, ABBA
>veterans some of them, who write her material?
Is battery the collective noun for songwriters?
If so, how do you describe the plastic surgeons?
--
Stephen Toogood
Stephen Toogood
<tr...@euronet.nl> writes
song, for the most part he wrote it with the hope that as many singers
as possible would sing it, probably initially in live performance, and
also in the hope that one or more of them would record it and bolster
his income. Most singers and most bands performed loads of numbers they
never intended to record.
Now, an executive makes a decision that band X (sometimes one invented
by his colleagues as a brand) will release a record on such and such a
date, and that the record needs to sell to a specific market, and
therefore to have a certain specific sound. They then get someone to
write it, and for all I know they try to write copyright transfer into
the contract at the same time.
In the first instance the whole cycle was writer-led; in the second...
Of course there must have been a transition phase, nor are these two
stereotypes hard-and-fast, but that was what I was getting at.
And all because we were discussing 'cover version', since 'cover' has no
real meaning under the first regime.
--
Stephen Toogood
Stephen Toogood
perchprism <gbl...@home.com> writes
>
>"Stephen Toogood" <ste...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:WPEZSuAO...@stenches.demon.co.uk...
>
>
>> How about 'post-Telstar'?
>
>And thus show we our age! I have a feeling there's a sharp cut-off for this
>one.
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,265463,00.html
--
Stephen Toogood
Laura F Spira
[..]
>
> >Anyway, it does
> >seem to be a post-Sputnik pop music thing.
>
> How about 'post-Telstar'?
As a sufferer from Stuck Tune Syndrome, I could have done without that
reminder, thank you.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
perchprism
Damn. First Joey Ramone, and now this.
Padraig Breathnach
>Stephen Toogood wrote:
>
>> How about 'post-Telstar'?
>
>As a sufferer from Stuck Tune Syndrome, I could have done without that
>reminder, thank you.
Consider yourself lucky that he did not mention more complicated, like
... no, I'd better not mention it.
My recent stuck tunes have, for some reason which I cannot fathom, all
been Irish traditional songs.
PB
John Varela
> You lost me on that last bit. Don't you mean, the standard assumption
> these days is that singers and groups write their own songs? As opposed
> to the way it was before Dylan and the Beatles.
I think you're right, and it has something to do with the decline of the
Broadway and movie musical.
--
John Varela
God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and
the United States of America -- Otto von Bismarck
Tony Cooper
> But in the poppier areas of modern pop music....
"Poppier"? What's a this-is-more-than-a-Whoa expression?
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
Tony Cooper
>
> My recent stuck tunes have, for some reason which I cannot fathom, all
> been Irish traditional songs.
I once had "Home by Bearna" (Cathy Ryan) in my mind for
three days. I had to play "The Magical Band" twenty-seven
times to replace it.
Nehmo Sergheyev
> I think it came from back when people were getting interested in
"black
> music" (early rock'n'roll, some jazz).
Nehmo
Non-people were interested in it before then?
--
**************************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
**************************
http://home.kc.rr.com/missouri/Susan_Talks.htm
Matti Lamprhey
> Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > But in the poppier areas of modern pop music....
>
> "Poppier"? What's a this-is-more-than-a-Whoa expression?
Jazzier... Classier... What's the problem?
Matti
Spooky Guy Next Door
(neh...@hotmail.com) posted the following...
> Spooky Guy Next Door
> > I think it came from back when people were getting interested in
> "black
> > music" (early rock'n'roll, some jazz).
>
> Nehmo
> Non-people were interested in it before then?
D'oh. First my explanation is pointed out as a popular myth, and now it
turns out to be missing one (under the circumstances) very crucial word,
to boot.
That should, of course, be "white people", not "people".
R H Draney
There must be a line somewhere...the above work, and "grungier" is
fine, but "rockier" is misleading, "countrier" can only be used
jocularly, and "mariachier" is completely out of the question....
I usually try to pin it down to a "similar artist" label when
describing on of my songs...the only time I've had trouble was with
one that had a Ray Davies influence [1]; describing it as "Kinky" gave
people an entirely wrong impression....r
[1] http://home.earthlink.net/~dadoctah/music/AbernathyZasch.mid
John Varela
> Laura F Spira <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote:
>
> >As a sufferer from Stuck Tune Syndrome, I could have done without that
> >reminder, thank you.
>
> Consider yourself lucky that he did not mention more complicated, like
> .... no, I'd better not mention it.
>
> My recent stuck tunes have, for some reason which I cannot fathom, all
> been Irish traditional songs.
As a teenager I was stuck on one tune off and on for about a year and,
worse, I didn't know what tune it was. The next summer I returned to the
same place, they played the record again, I learned it was Meadowlands (of
all things), and I came unstuck.
Tony Cooper
>
> As a teenager I was stuck on one tune off and on for about a year and,
> worse, I didn't know what tune it was. The next summer I returned to the
> same place, they played the record again, I learned it was Meadowlands (of
> all things), and I came unstuck.
>
The Russian song? I had a 78 rpm album of the "Red Army
Chorus" that included that. Magnificent group.
Skitt
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3C352497...@yahoo.com...
> John Varela wrote:
> >
> > As a teenager I was stuck on one tune off and on for about a year and,
> > worse, I didn't know what tune it was. The next summer I returned to
the
> > same place, they played the record again, I learned it was Meadowlands
(of
> > all things), and I came unstuck.
> >
>
> The Russian song? I had a 78 rpm album of the "Red Army
> Chorus" that included that. Magnificent group.
Oh, THAT song. I know it well. There's a clip of it at
http://www.friends-partners.org/slavyanka/discography.html
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
John Varela
> The Russian song? I had a 78 rpm album of the "Red Army
> Chorus" that included that. Magnificent group.
78?
I still have a 33 1/3 of "The Red Army Ensemble" (I think the same group was
formerly "The Red Army Chorus"), Vox STPL 515.090, with _Meadowland_ on it.
Rarer yet is ARTIA ALP-170, "The Piatnisky Chorus", which includes the
lyrics in Russian/Cyrillic, Russian/Latin, and English.
Polyooshko -- polye,
Polyooshko, sheeroko polye!
Yedoot po polyoo geroyee
Ekh, Sovyetskoy Armeeyi geroyee!
I even have a turntable to play them on.
David
>
> On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 03:42:15, Tony Cooper <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > The Russian song? I had a 78 rpm album of the "Red Army
> > Chorus" that included that. Magnificent group.
>
> 78?
>
> I still have a 33 1/3 of "The Red Army Ensemble" (I think the same group was
> formerly "The Red Army Chorus"), Vox STPL 515.090, with _Meadowland_ on it.
> Rarer yet is ARTIA ALP-170, "The Piatnisky Chorus", which includes the
> lyrics in Russian/Cyrillic, Russian/Latin, and English.
>
> Polyooshko -- polye,
> Polyooshko, sheeroko polye!
> Yedoot po polyoo geroyee
> Ekh, Sovyetskoy Armeeyi geroyee!
Oh Field,
Oh wide Field
Go to the heroic Field
Oh heroic Soviet Army!
--
David
The address is valid, but I will change it at to keep ahead of the
spammers.
John Varela
> John Varela wrote:
>
> > Polyooshko -- polye,
> > Polyooshko, sheeroko polye!
> > Yedoot po polyoo geroyee
> > Ekh, Sovyetskoy Armeeyi geroyee!
>
> Oh Field,
> Oh wide Field
> Go to the heroic Field
> Oh heroic Soviet Army!
The record notes translate it:
Meadowlands
Great wide Meadowlands
Through the meadows ride our heroes
Ride the Red Army heroes.
It seems unlikely that Sovyetskoy translates as Red, but there you are.
Tony Cooper
>
> On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 03:42:15, Tony Cooper <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > The Russian song? I had a 78 rpm album of the "Red Army
> > Chorus" that included that. Magnificent group.
>
> 78?
>
> I still have a 33 1/3 of "The Red Army Ensemble" (I think the same group was
> formerly "The Red Army Chorus"), Vox STPL 515.090, with _Meadowland_ on it.
> Rarer yet is ARTIA ALP-170, "The Piatnisky Chorus", which includes the
> lyrics in Russian/Cyrillic, Russian/Latin, and English.
>
My son's girlfriend is from Udmurtia, Russia. Remembering
the album that I had once owned (lost in some move), I
purchased a tape cassette of the current group (can't
remember if it's Ensemble or Chorus) for her. Mine dated
from the 50s, though. I also had a 78 rpm album set of Paul
Robeson that was recorded in Russia. Some Russian songs,
but mostly American communist songs like "I dreamed I saw
Joe Hill last night".
On the RAC album, I can't remember which song it was, but
the repeated (this is phonetic) "Allelushenyun" fading away
was a favorite. Perhaps "Song of the Plains"?
Robert Lieblich
>
> On Fri, 04 Jan 2002 21:59:55 GMT, jav...@earthlink.net (John
> Varela) wrote:
>
> >I even have a turntable to play them on.
>
All that will change, comes the revolution.
Spooky Guy Next Door
(cr...@pacific.net.sg) posted the following...
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002 22:57:51 +1100, Spooky Guy Next Door
> <mgall...@cyberfuddle.com> wrote:
>
> >That should, of course, be "white people", not "people".
>
> Shouldn't that be 'white folk'?
No, the folk are yellow. It's the outside bit, the name of which I always
forget, which is white.
John Varela
> On the RAC album, I can't remember which song it was, but
> the repeated (this is phonetic) "Allelushenyun" fading away
> was a favorite. Perhaps "Song of the Plains"?
Accompanied by clippity-clop sounds? Meadowland. The lyrics have nothing
that looks like "Allelushenyun", but if you don't have the written lyrics in
front of you it all sounds like nonsense syllables anyway.
FWIW the songs on "The Red Army Ensemble" album are:
Side One Side Two
Volga Boat Song Meadowland
Troika Song of the Prisoner
Song about Shchors The Sun Sets behind the Mountain
Doubinouchka Under the Oak Tree
They are Valiant Nightingale Song
Seven Sons-in-Law Sing Soldier
Soviet National Anthem
Meadowland starts quietly, builds, then fades away, representing a company
of horsemen going past. I just played the album and the only other song
that fades away is the Volga Boat Song, but surely you know that one.
Robert Lieblich
>
> On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 04:36:14, Tony Cooper <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On the RAC album, I can't remember which song it was, but
> > the repeated (this is phonetic) "Allelushenyun" fading away
> > was a favorite. Perhaps "Song of the Plains"?
>
> Accompanied by clippity-clop sounds? Meadowland. The lyrics have nothing
> that looks like "Allelushenyun", but if you don't have the written lyrics in
> front of you it all sounds like nonsense syllables anyway.
I watched *Cast Away* tonight on HBO. The opening scenes are set in
Russia, and I could swear "Meadowland" was the background music.
Damn thing's everywhere.
--
Gospodin Bob Lieblich
Tony Cooper
>
> FWIW the songs on "The Red Army Ensemble" album are:
>
> Side One Side Two
>
> Volga Boat Song Meadowland
> Troika Song of the Prisoner
> Song about Shchors The Sun Sets behind the Mountain
> Doubinouchka Under the Oak Tree
> They are Valiant Nightingale Song
> Seven Sons-in-Law Sing Soldier
> Soviet National Anthem
>
> Meadowland starts quietly, builds, then fades away, representing a company
> of horsemen going past. I just played the album and the only other song
> that fades away is the Volga Boat Song, but surely you know that one.
Mine had "Song of the Plains" and "Oh, How Proud Our Quiet
Don" plus VBS and "Meadowland". I forget the rest.
Noting the above, I have to laugh at "Song about Shchors".
Very close to the Yiddish "Schnorers", and could be parodied
by that guy that sang the camping song.