What are the Covers You Like Better than the Original?

The great Tim Hardin song, no not If I were a carpenter, It’ll never happen again. Those first few lines say it all.
 
Juliana Hatfield's version of Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay

 
Original by Macklemore

 
Stevie Wonder is almost impossible to cover but I really like this one from one of my favorite LP's this year

 
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the queen of covers.
After leaving Ike and before her great comeback with the Private Dancer LP, Tina did not have the luxuary of being handed great original songs but she liked to cover songs she loved, which she did not give up even afterwards.

Here is a New Year special - all songs are great covers except the last one Nutbush, which she had penned herself.

Cat People
Acid Queen
Let's Stay Together
HELP!
 
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It's rare that anyone can beat a Mary Wells original, but The Marvelettes did with their cover of [ What's Easy For Two ].
 
Johnny Cash singing "The Mercy Seat" on American Recordings III. I love Nick Cave's original, but Johnny brings his "voice of God" presence to this spinning demon of a song. Pretty intense!
 
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I'll play:

Carpenters' Ticket to Ride
Sergio Mendez and Brazil '66's Fool on the Hill
Bruce Hornsby's Madman Across the Water (by a whisker)

All products of master (re)arrangers.

Honorable Mentions: Three Dog Night's Eli's Coming, Blood, Sweat and Tears' God Bless the Child, Patti Smith's Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head (gotcha!)
 

 

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