Boy, Sol, I sure agree with you on that one. I don't like the word "cover" at all. When I was working on lyrics research for the Rise Again songbook, the "Blues" chapter was my favorite and my most frustrating. A number of the songs came out on records by three or more different performers in the same year, and it was often very difficult to figure out who wrote the song and who first recorded it. And oftentimes every one of the recordings of a song was terrific. It was also very difficult to find out where to get copyright permissions. We did our best, but I'm sure we were wrong at times.
That word "cover" has a negative tone, as if there with something wrong with recording a song that had been recorded before.
In most cases, "version" is a far better word.

-Joe-