Really BAD Covers

Subject: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:05 PM

We have a thread for really GOOD covers. This is for their opposites. People who should have let the original stand as-is.

First nominees:

Donna Summers - MacArthur Park
Madonna - American Pie
Pearl Jam - Last Kiss

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Elmore
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:15 PM

Trini Lopez "If I Had a Hammer"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:23 PM

Terry Wogan - "The Floral Dance"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: alex s
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:45 PM

Ronan Keating - Father & Son

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: melodeonboy
Date: 06 May 10 - 04:21 PM

Status Quo - Rockin' All Over The World

(Moral: Don't send boys to do men's work!)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Goodnight Gracie
Date: 06 May 10 - 04:49 PM

One of the most bizzare and funny covers is a video of Debbie Reynolds singing If I Had a Hammer. She is in a cocktail dress and surrounded by chorus boys.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 May 10 - 05:09 PM

I used to say terrible things about Trini Lopez, but I've mellowed a bit in my old age. He give me a certain nostalgic comfort, but I still wonder why had had to have those dishes clanging and rattling in the background.

Alex included the Donna Summers cover of "MacArthur Park" on his list of bad covers, but I have to say I think the Richard Harris original of "MacArthur Park" is just as bad. The park itself, is quite nice, as urban parks go. It's a nice transition from Wilshire Boulevard to downtown Los Angeles.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 May 10 - 05:43 PM

"Madeira, M'Dear?", rendered *not funny* by The Limeliters.
"City of New Orleans", rendered *pedestrian* by The Country Gentlemen.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:10 PM

Amy Winehouse's cover of "Valerie"

Dolly Parton's "Stairway to Heaven"

Madonna's "American Pie"

Hillary Duff's "My Generation"

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"

The list is endless......

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Bill D
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:20 PM

Read 'em & weep - Leonard Nimoy & Bill Shatner..

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:43 PM

Jessica Simpson's cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walking"

and my rendition of "Hurt", which I haven't played in the longest time.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:25 PM

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"

BAD ?

Not in my book !   That's my favourite version.


DC

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: beeliner
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:31 PM

The three worst that come to mind immediately:

"I'm Walkin'" by Ricky Nelson

"Mrs. Robinson" by Frank Sinatra

"Whiskey in the Jar" by Thin Lizzy

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:31 PM

QUOTE
Dolly Parton's "Stairway to Heaven"
UNQUOTE

Obviously you never heard Norman Gunston's version....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:48 PM

.... or come to think of it Rolf Harris...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:58 PM

Wash your mouth.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:54 AM

The Rolf Harris version is SO bad that it's good, in an "ironic" way. The Dolly Parton version is just BAD!

And no, I haven't heard the Norman Gunston version.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:56 AM

... or come to think of it .... shudder ... ANYTHING that Norman Gunston did ... "I can hear the drums Fernando" "There was something in the air that night" ... that's for sure....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:37 AM

for those who don't know Norman Gunston

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:43 AM

I don't think you can really have Norman Gunston in this list, because he was a fictional satirical character in the first place - a bit like Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) over here in the UK. You have to have genuine people genuinely beating the crap out of otherwise good songs.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:53 AM

Sorry, but the Shatner and Nimoy trump card has already been played. Mind you - Telly Savalas' 'If a picture paints a thousands words' must be up there with the greats.

Heard Zeppelin's 'Whole lot of love' done by Mary J Blige the other day. I am still too shocked to put in a report on it...

DeG

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:22 AM

Dolly Partons "I will always love you"........ a few have tried... the odd hit but it can't compare with Dolly singing it to Burt Reynolds in 'The greatest little Whorehouse in Texas'
Dolly singing to Burt.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:58 AM

This topic came up in a radio show. Burned into my memory are:

Bill Shatner's: (When I Was Seventeen) It Was a Very Good Year
The Brothers Four: Revolution

I like some of the Brothers Four tunes. Just goes to show you what can happen when you try to emulate a style you just don't appreciate. Big Daddy could take a new song, sing it in a 50s do-wop style and make it sound both hilarious and good at the same time. Brothers Four...nope.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 07 May 10 - 06:52 AM

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"
BAD ?
Not in my book !   That's my favourite version.
DC

There's no accounting for taste :-)

To me he just murders it...I get no impression at all that *anyone's* "lighting his fire"...nice guitar work, but NO emotion.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:39 AM

Anything played by the Irish rebel band Athenrye......they grate on my nerves....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:41 AM

Oh and anyone cruel enough to cover that horribly over maudlin song "Seasons In the Sun".

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:08 AM

"I don't think you can really have Norman Gunston in this list, because he was a fictional satirical character in the first place"

You aren't an Aussie surely, if you don't know who Garry McDonald was... if you really think that you can separate the two... :-)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:29 AM

Is that covers of the Terry Jack's version, Amergin, or covers of the original French version (La Moribond) by Jaques Brel? I would like to hear someone do it as Brel intended - Wife's infedelity and all but as I don't speak French I am not sure it would translate any better than Jacks (NOT English translation of Jaques!) version :-)

DeG

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: clueless don
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:35 AM

beeliner already mentioned "Mrs. Robinson" by Frank Sinatra, which gets my vote as worst cover of all time. My second-place vote would go to "Gentle on my Mind" by Dean Martin. I like a lot of Dean Martin's stuff, but he sure butchered Gentle.

Don

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:00 AM

Guns N Roses are responsible for dozens of bad covers including one by Charles Manson, but the worst injustice of all is their cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heavens Door". Axl's vocal histrionics actually manages to strip the song of it's emotional power.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: JJ
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:13 AM

Re: Terry Jack's rendition of the Jacques Brel song mentioned above.

The English adaptation/translation sung by Jacks as "Seasons in the Sun" is by Rod McKuen...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:22 AM

Was he from the Bay City Rollers? :-)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 07 May 10 - 10:39 AM

Anybody who has done "Unchained Melody". Let Al Hibbler be the last word.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: PHJim
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:20 PM

The Lawrence Welk Band's version of One Toke Over The Line ranks right up there. I wonder if Larry realized what "Tokin'" was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: eddie1
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:59 PM

Sorry folks but when it comes to REALLY BAD these guys are strictly amateurs compared with Cher singing "Bells of Rhymney"!

It is on Spotify for those who tend towards the masochistic!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Ref
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:15 PM

Thank you, Joe Offer. ANYBODY doing "McArthur Park" is a bad cover. Sinatra's "Mrs. Robinson" is also just horrible, as you have a great song stylist completely miscalculating.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: oldhippie
Date: 08 May 10 - 05:59 PM

PHJ, Welk thought it was a new gospel number. "sweet jesus" !

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: RWilhelm
Date: 08 May 10 - 07:32 PM

I love Aretha, but not doing "Elenore Rigby"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 08 May 10 - 07:36 PM

Well, some consider these great new "interpretations," but although I like the singers, I consider these more "butcherings" of the original songs than mere new "versions":
Eva Cassidy - Over The Rainbow
Bruddah Iz - Over The Rainbow (again)

And I say that because both of them almost totally lost/destroyed the song's melody (plus Iz butchered the lyrics too).

One I don't think is "awful" but IMO can't hold a candle to the way the songwriter herself sings it is Counting Crows' "Big Yellow Taxi."

Then there's UB40's reggae version of Elvis's "(I) Can't Help Falling In Love (With You)." For one thing, he changes the line "Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling, so it goes; Some things are meant to be" to "... flows gently to the sea .." - thus destroying the simile.

One more gawdawful rendition of a song - DK if you could call it a "cover - is Patsy Cline's lounge-singer style rendition of "Life's Mountain Railway."   It's so bad it's actually funny.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 May 10 - 04:54 AM

Gotta add a couple more:

Scissors Sisters version of "Comfortably Numb". 'Orrible!

Ronan Keating's "Fairytale of New York"

Elaine Paige's "Radio Ga Ga"

Rod Stewart's cover of "Sailing"

There's no end to them..............

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 09 May 10 - 05:11 AM

Anything covered by Danial O'Donnell

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 10 - 06:52 AM

When I read the title of this thread my immediate thought was Frank Sinatra butchering Mrs Robinson. Three people have beaten me to it but it has to be said again - awful!!

Roger

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 09 May 10 - 07:14 AM

Sadly, Jaques Brell's songs are almost impossible to translate into English and keep the meaning. Port of Amsterdam is almost unrecognisable lyrically to the original (great song though) and Terry Jacks 'seasons in the sun' is a travesty.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 10 - 11:52 AM

I can't really go for Tom Waites' version of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips"...it doesn't hold up well at all against Tiny Tim's definitive rendition.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 09 May 10 - 11:57 AM

I do hate it when "swinging" finger snapping singers do folkie type material. The way Jack Jones "swings" "Homeward Bound" is the perfect example of this sort of thing.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 May 10 - 12:41 PM

It is obvious from the foregoing that you have never heard ME sing -- which is just as well.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 10 - 02:06 PM

Bloody right!   ;-)

I've been wondering what sort of a job Celine Dionne could do on "Highway to Hell".

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 09 May 10 - 04:39 PM

I am quite happy with my duvet cover

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 10 May 10 - 08:09 AM

Bobby Darin's 'Beyond the Sea' is a truly awful 'swinging, finger snapping' cover. It just rips the heart out of Charles Trenet's gorgeous 'La Mer'.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 10 May 10 - 09:12 AM

Lee Marvin's 'Wandering Star' would win hands down.....if it wasn't actually the original.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 May 10 - 11:23 AM

Come to think of it, the quilt on my bed is getting really ratty looking. Something must be done about it soon.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 May 10 - 11:26 AM

Real? Or made-up for a game?

~S~

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,clontarf83
Date: 10 May 10 - 11:48 AM

I really liked Thin Lizzie's version of whiskey in the jar!!!--ace lead guitar break in there.

The most horrible cover music I recall was Irish Showbands in the 60s covering American C&W songs--too many to mention. Celtic Thunder are giving them a run for their money now, though...some pretty cheezy stuff in there...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 10 May 10 - 01:13 PM

How can we forget Pat Boone's cover of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti?"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: alanabit
Date: 10 May 10 - 02:25 PM

By trying hard - really hard!

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 10 May 10 - 03:21 PM

Lee Marvin's 'Wandering Star' would win hands down.....if it wasn't actually the original.


Naw..... Lee Marvin's 'Wandering Star' was ace!
...... but then again, as Rob Naylor said above, about my views on Jose Feliciano, there's no accounting for taste.

Maybe it's just me that's odd.


DC

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: ruairiobroin
Date: 10 May 10 - 04:06 PM

Jon Otway's version of I Will Survive is so bad it's fab, and he does it in a wonderfully Dylanesque voice
try youtube

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:39 PM

"How can we forget Pat Boone's cover of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti?""

Amen! Especially bad because the release was blantantly calculated to rob Richard of record sales.

I'm not sure, but I believe that several of the recordings that kick-started Pat Boone's career were similarly bland covers of great R&B recordings. The world would have been better off if the only available recordings of each were the original versions.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: beeliner
Date: 10 May 10 - 07:21 PM

When I first heard Pat's recordings of "Ain't That a Shame" and "Tutti Frutti", I had never heard of Fats Domino nor Little Richard.

Pop music was pretty much segregated then, with the exception of a few 'crossover' artists like Nat Cole, Sarah Vaughn, and the Mills Brothers.

I think the record that probably did the most to break that barrier was Chuck Berry's "Maybelline". When it became an R&B hit there were several covers by white performers, all of them horrible, and Berry's original broke through, the rest being rock and roll history.

Then the previously little known (to white listeners) versions of some of Pat's hits became popular retroactively.

Pat and Richard have, of course, been good friends in private life for a long time.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: clueless don
Date: 11 May 10 - 08:35 AM

I actually liked a Pat Boone song that I remember from the old days. It went something like

Since,
I lost my ba-a-by,
I al-al-mo-ost lo-ost my mind

or something like that. Anyone remember it? Of course, if it was a cover, the original was probably better.

Don

---

Pat Boone: I Almost Lost My Mind [link from Joe O]

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 11 May 10 - 08:04 PM

Yes, Little Richard has for quite some time now credited Pat Boone with helping open the mainstream radio "doors" to his music and that of other black artists - albeit by way of doing a sort of 'sanitized and denatured' cover of songs like Tutti Frutti and Ain't That A Shame.

White artists' covers of black r&b songs like Earth Angel; Roll (Dance) With Me, Henry; Crazy Little Mama, etc., did help popularize the genre and eventually the "race music" itself.

But usually, once you heard the originals, it was hard to get as excited about the covers.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: beeliner
Date: 11 May 10 - 09:20 PM

Since,
I lost my ba-a-by,
I al-al-mo-ost lo-ost my mind

Ivory Joe Hunter, charted #1 R&B in 1950.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 11 May 10 - 09:57 PM

Genie: But usually, once you heard the originals, it was hard to get as excited about the covers.

I agree almost entirely except Sh-Boom, where I like the Crew Cuts version better. Probably because I heard it first and didn't hear the Chords' version until long after.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Andrew Emmet
Date: 11 May 10 - 10:49 PM

What about Mrs. Miller!

Downtown   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw07CDid0JM

Strangers In The Night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV0MtVWIN8Y

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 11 May 10 - 11:58 PM

Me too, Mousethief. I fell in love with and still love The Crew Cuts' version of Sh-Boom. (I had a crush on Johnny Perkins, too.) In fact I kind of prefer their version of Earth Angel to the Penguins' too - maybe because I fell in love with it before I ever heard the original.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Mike B.
Date: 12 May 10 - 12:38 AM

Eddie Albert's recording of "Blowin' In The Wind" and Vanna White's of "Turn, Turn, Turn".

Okay, the second one's a joke (not original) and never happened - too bad the first actually did.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Larry
Date: 12 May 10 - 04:58 AM

A couple of years ago at he Cambridge Folk Fest Jimmy Webb had the rare distinction of murdering his own songs.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 12 May 10 - 04:40 PM

I mean, I absolutely love Patsy Cline and her voice is to die for even when she butchers a song stylistically, but this version of Life's Mountain Railway is so lounge-singer-y that it's laughable. Especially the backup vocal group.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: clueless don
Date: 13 May 10 - 09:04 AM

Thank you, Joe, for that YouTube link! I always liked that song, though I think that as a rule Pat Boone did better with songs like "Love Letters in the Sand".

And thank you beeliner for the information about the original ("Ivory Joe Hunter, charted #1 R&B in 1950".) I hope I'll get a chance to hear it someday.

Don

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 May 10 - 09:35 AM

I think this one is baaaad! In more than one sense.

As are these ideas!

But sleeping on the streets seems about the most tasteless. Until you find out that profits go to help the homeless:-)

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 13 May 10 - 01:14 PM

Jeez Mr el Gnomo, how much random web trawling do you have to do to pick up stuff like that? :-)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 May 10 - 03:04 PM

Pianist/vocalist Ivory Joe Hunter made a lot of recordings. Two of his best-known and most-often-covered are actually pretty similar, muscially as well as lyrically (to my ear, anyway): "Since I Met You Baby," and "I Almost Lost My Mind." Both great songs.

I just learned from Wikipedia that "Ivory Joe" is NOT a nickname or stage name ~ it's his actual birth name. He was christened "Ivory Joe Hunter." Amazing...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 13 May 10 - 03:18 PM

Somebody, I think it might have been Jacqueline and Bridie, once made an atrocious recording of The Lish Young Buy a Broom, complete with string orchestra. As if that wasn't bad enough, the strings tried to punctuate the melody with a kind of percussive effect so that it came out in fits and starts. Bom bom bom, bom bom bom etc.

After 4 decades I still wake up screaming at the sound of it.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: PHJim
Date: 13 May 10 - 06:24 PM

What about Bob Dylan's covers of a whole raft of Christmas songs?

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Gurney
Date: 13 May 10 - 09:52 PM

Beyonce singing 'Fever.' Well, most people except Peggy Lee singing it.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 14 May 10 - 02:17 AM

I just learned from Wikipedia that "Ivory Joe" is NOT a nickname or stage name ~ it's his actual birth name. He was christened "Ivory Joe Hunter." Amazing...

Made to be a piano player.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 14 May 10 - 04:04 AM

Sandra

Many thanks for reminding us about Norman Gunston...the videos were priceless

Allen

from BMC

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 14 May 10 - 06:46 AM

Just been told by my children that my own covers of The Indelicates' "We Hate The Kids" and Keith Donnelly's "Breakfast Blues" are respectively the worst and second worst renditions of anything they've ever heard!

Though the Donnelly oe was more about the lyrics than the actual execution ("You bring me hard eggs in the morning, I never sausage misery").

So I guess that's my plan to do them at the next High Brooms Tavern Session down the pan.....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: clueless don
Date: 14 May 10 - 09:28 AM

I just happened to think of the cover of the song "Hooked on a Feeling" - the cover with all of the "oogah chugahs". I thought that was pretty bad - though I suppose it could work as a "party song".

Don

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 May 10 - 10:57 AM

Here is Lonnie Donegan's version of Over the Rainbow.

Brave anyway. Actually I once heard him sing it with just a guitar, and that wasn't at all bad. Unfortunately...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 14 May 10 - 10:59 AM

I just happened to think of the cover of the song "Hooked on a Feeling" - the cover with all of the "oogah chugahs". I thought that was pretty bad - though I suppose it could work as a "party song".

Yeah I always thought of that one as a novelty song. When I was in junior high school it seemed pretty cool, though. But you gotta wonder WTF inspired them to do that? Really bad acid trip or something.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 14 May 10 - 07:03 PM

The best of the bad imo was The Bachelors singing The Sound of Silence - recorded sometime in the sixties. The Bachelors were three very devout Irish Catholic lads - at least that's the way they were marketed at the time. The lads were so holy that they couldn't bring themselves to use the word "womb" which is in one of Paul Simon's verses . They used the line "hiding in my room ,safe within my room" instead of "hiding in my room safe within my womb". I wonder what ever happened to them.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 May 10 - 07:21 PM

Doesn't sound too likely. Any Catholic with worries about using the word "womb" would have serious difficulty ever saying a Hail Mary.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: beeliner
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:18 PM

I just happened to think of the cover of the song "Hooked on a Feeling" - the cover with all of the "oogah chugahs". I thought that was pretty bad - though I suppose it could work as a "party song".

That was by Blue Swede, and there's an 'urban legend' that there's an obscene message hidden in one of the "oogah chucka"s.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 15 May 10 - 12:33 AM

"Hiding in my room, safe within my womb" isn't in "Sounds of Silence" but in "I Am a Rock".

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 15 May 10 - 02:24 AM

Just a clarification on Seasons in the Sun. The version Terry Jacks did was NOT the way Rod McKuen translated it. He sanitized it in order to make it acceptable to "pop" radio--and absolutely butchered it. The Rod McKuen translation is pretty good, actually, and is definitely NOT a maudlin song. Listen to versions by Kingston Trio, Bud Dashiel, or Pearls Before Swine. My vote for worst cover is Terry Jacks doing Seasons in the Sun.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 15 May 10 - 06:03 PM

And who can forget Cher's rendition of "O Holy Night" - parodied to perfection by Paul Shafer!?

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Elmore
Date: 01 Dec 21 - 03:35 PM

Stumbled on Pete Seeger singing American Pie on YouTube recently. Not good. On the other hand Home Free featuring Don Mclean did an excellent cover of that song earlier this year.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Sol
Date: 04 Dec 21 - 07:38 AM

Remember "Living Next Door To Alice" by Smokie?
Whoever released the "Who the **** is Alice" version should be hung, drawn & quartered. They succeeded in sending an innocent little commercial song into the trashy world of pop infamy.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Dec 21 - 04:07 AM

Lanes of Woollmooloo, a poem by the late great John Dengate, written in the 70s/80s
Description using today's terminology - a homeless veteran of WW2 battles against the Japanese, living on the streets in the slums of inner Sydney, using methylated spirits to combat his demons ... White lady is his mistress, They fornicate and woo, Spawning blind oblivion, In the lanes of Woolloomooloo ...

A poem put to music & sung by a woman with a sweet SOPRANO voice.

video - recited at John's memorial by Jason whose grandfather & John's father & his uncles fought in these battles

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: voyager
Date: 05 Dec 21 - 07:12 PM

Actor Sebastian Cabot doing a poetic dramatization of Dylan's Boots of Spanish Leather. For that matter, Sebastian Cabot singing anything.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Dec 21 - 06:46 PM

Connie Francis bellowing "My Happiness"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 21 - 03:00 PM

Peter, Paul and Mary - Where have all the flowers gone