GREAT COVER VERSIONS #3/ Revolting Cocks – Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

Revolting Cocks or RevCo are an industrial rock outfit of (alleged) lunatics and heroin fiends that got their name while being thrown out of a bar for fighting

apparently the owner shouted after them “you guys are a bunch of revolting cocks” and they liked that so much it stuck

anyway regardless of these rock group shenanigans, they know how to knock out a tune or two and this is a fine example of them at the hight of their powers, a cover of Rod Stewarts 1978 hit Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

it was released as a single and also appeared on their 1993 album Linger Ficken’ Good

i’ve included a vid of Rod Stewart performing the original version for comparison

GREAT COVER VERSIONS #2/ The Soup Dragons – I’m Free

The Soup Dragons - I'm Free

I’m Free by The Soup Dragons was probably the dance floor filler of 1990 and was surprisingly penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1965 for The Rolling Stones album Out Of Our Heads

25 years later it hit #5 in the UK charts. that makes this song an incredible FOURTY  FIVE years old .  .   .    .

and while typifying the so-called Madchester scene of which it seemed a part of (despite these boys being Scottish) i think it sounds pretty damn fresh

GREAT COVER VERSIONS #1/ Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Stagger Lee

 

Stagger Lee by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds has to be pretty much my favourite cover version

it’s a traditional blues song with vague origins, much in the same vein as Hey Joe which Jimi Hendrix made his own

it tells a simple story of menace and murder and in its dying minute may contain the most horrible scream ever recorded, courtesy of guitarist Blixa Bargeld

this is also my favourite videos of theirs: i love the whimsy of the two men on podiums dancing in a not particularly macho way while Cave cavorts in a pink t-shirt that declares ‘take that love you’

the band produced this for the Murder Ballads project which seems to be one of the most accessable Bad Seeds albums to casual listeners

it also contains the duets, both released as singles, Where The Wild Roses Grow with Kylie Minogue and Henry Lee with PJ Harvey