ThaBombShelter UnderCover Day Seven: My Personal Favorites

It's now the seventh day of UnderCover Week here at ThaBombShelter, and I'm going to spend tonight posting some of my favorite cover songs of all time. I couldn't find the originals to some of them, but I'm going to post them anyway, dammit. Also, you may notice that some of them are reposts from earlier in the week, but I don't care, they're good enough to warrant another mention. Enjoy!

"54-46 Was My Number" Toots and the Maytals
"54-46-Ball And Chain" Sublime

This was from "Retro Stylin'" back on day one.

"August & September" Elbow
"Live on My Mind" Elbow

Both of these tracks are fantastic. I have the original of "August & September" by The The, but to be honest, it's too bad for me to want to post. Just listen to the Elbow version and consider yourself lucky.

"Bisbee Blue" Calexico

This was one of the very first songs I ever wrote about here on ThaBombShelter. At the time, I didn't have the resources to post songs, so here it is, over a year and a half later, but hey, better late than never, right?

"Blackbird" The Beatles
"Blackbird" Doves

I didn't have this track when I put the Fab Four day together (you may remember the Sarah McLachlan cover), but through the wonder of the internet, a friend of mine on Facebook sent me this track. I've heard it before, and I thought I had it, but I guess it's one of those songs that just got lost to the ages.

"Freebird" Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Freebird" Tally Hall

I'm telling you, I just have to hear it once, once is all I need.

"Good Vibrations" The Langley Schools Music Project

Elementary schoolers singing the Beach Boys? Awesome.

"Hallelujah" Jeff Buckley
"Hallelujah" Willie Nelson

I completely forgot about this one, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it. Buckley's version is phenomenal ("Grace" is such a phenomenal album), and Willie's version is pretty awesome too.

"Hurt" Johnny Cash

Sure, Trent Reznor made this song famous, but it was that video with Johnny Cash that truly brought this song to a whole new level. It's like it took someone who had actually felt the kind of soul-crushing pain that Trent Reznor can only imagine to bring out the truth in this tune.



"Jackie (La Chanson De Jacky)" Jacques Brel
"Jackie" Scott Walker

Epic. Majestic. Easily my favorite Scott Walker tune.

"A Minha Menina" Os Mutantes
"A Minha Menina" The Bees

Such a great song, both versions.

"Never Ending Story" Limahl (from the OST)
"Never Ending Story" New Found Glory

I was originally planning on doing a "Movie Night", but I discovered that I didn't really have enough movie tunes to make a go of it. Plus, this is pretty much the only song that I had to share anyway, so here you go.

"Rainy Night In Georgia" Hem

I was unable to find the original of this song, but it's so beautiful and great that I couldn't not post it.

"Spaceface (Live)" Doves

While not technically a cover (it's actually a Sub Sub song, which was the band whose ashes Doves literally rose from). My favorite part of the song has to be right at the beginning when he says, "I want every one of you to go fucking mad!" It's so totally early nineties rave culture. I can just imagine smiley faces and extasy and everything. Where's Bez?!

"Three Is A Magic Number" Blind Melon

Yet another victim of "No Original" Syndrome. This is one of my favorite School House Rock! songs.

"Venus in Furs" The Velvet Underground
"Venus in Furs" Devotchka

Another from "Retro Stylin" day.

And finally, here's one of my favorite Christmas covers, "Greensleeves" as sung by Vanessa Carlton (paired with the timeless Vince Guaraldi version)

"Greensleeves" Vince Guaraldi
"Greensleeves" Vanessa Carlton

I'd just like to thank everyone that commented and visited and wrote me and sent me songs and listened to stuff. This week has been a lot of fun, and has been a great success for myself and ThaBombShelter.

I really can't express how much this has helped me. If you've been reading ThaBombShelter for a while you may have noticed the frequency of posts have decreased as of late. To be honest, that was because I haven't had the motivation to write lately. I've been listening to a lot of music, I just haven't felt like writing about it. But this week (and the success it's had) has given me back that spark. I feel the excitement and fun that I felt back when I started this wonderful site. And it's that fun and excitement that pushes me on to keep this up. I'm not making any money off of this, in fact, it costs me money to run ThaBombShelter, but I do it because I love it, and I do it for all of you, and it's so wonderful to know that you appreciate what I'm doing here.

So once again, thank you all! You've made this week a huge success and you've made ThaBombShelter a bigger success than I could have ever imagined!

Have a safe and Merry XXX-Mas! We'll be back on the 26th with the first of our year end lists.

Enjoy your stay here at ThaBombShelter.

-H-Bomb

photo- That's me on the right and Pat's brother Ryan Hartnett in the middle on St. Patrick's day 2007. We were wasted, but I'm sure you could tell.