That Jealous Guy gets to me
Speaking a few entries earlier about unearthing a song that’s been covered a million times over - a few friends of mine and I seem to be hell-bent on finding every cover of a song we really love. I wasn’t looking for this Donny Hathaway cover of “Jealous Guy” - I heard it at a Halloween after party. It was one of those moments when you’re mid-conversation and then a certain lyric catches your ear and you know you’ve heard it before. It’s like picking up the mention of a friend’s name from across the room.
I’ll never say that any Lennon-McCartney, or just Lennon or just McCartney cover was better than the originals. Since being a teenager, I’ve been too obsessed with those guys to ever blaspheme in such a way. But there’s something to be said for shedding another light on what is already brilliant source material.
Take, for cringe-worthy example, this cover of “Hey Jude” that I unearthed in highschool when I realized that my parents might have vinyl records worth listening to. My dad had the good stuff - all the Beatles albums at least. My mom had a lot of Petula Clark, to her credit, Simon and Garfunkel, Englebert Humperdink (how could that ever sound sexy is a mystery to me) and then by extension, Tom Jones. The rest of the album might’ve been crap, but there are few redemptive moments on his cover of “Hey Jude” - just try to make yourself listen beyond the two minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6zbVlFrVgE
And then there’s this cover by the Faces of Jealous Guy (there’s about a minute and ten seconds of drunken banter before it gets going) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RzcpGnLDKQ
