The ethics of doing covers songs

[AJ6stringsting]

Some people do covers and others don't.

 

I have a curiosity about how people handle, do, perform and view cover songs.

[Notes_Norton]

I voted for the last 3 choices.

 

Sometimes I try to cover the song as close as possible to verbatim.

 

Sometimes I get the mood of the 'original' but change it to suit my personality. And even the direct covers drift that way.

 

Sometimes I radically change the song. Modernize? I'm not sure that is the right word. I've taken rock songs made them jazz, pop songs into Reggae, and so on.

 

There is more than one right way to do a cover - and if it goes over with the intended audience, it's right.

 

Insights and incites by Notes.

 

[Mark L]

If every band was a covers band, music wouldn't progress

 

I write my own stuff. I don't like doing covers. It's nice when people cover my stuff, though

[daddymack]

I don't know about 'modernize', but I like to put my own spin on a cover. Some I may keep close to the original, but 'bend' it to suit my voice and playing. Many I have altered the entire feel, or changed the genre.

I've been in a couple of bands that were 'jukebox heroes', doing 'note for note' perfect covers, and frankly, I never stayed long with those bands because there was no creativity involved. I got to the point where it just seemed like we were trained monkeys. Which is not to say that I don't first learn a song the way the original was done, but once I have that, I think it is time to put my stamp on it.

[AJ6stringsting]

If I do an Ozzy, Yngwie Malmsteen or Neil Young cover, I do them exact, out of respect to the listener and the original artist.

I played a Joe Satriani ( Satch Boogie / Circles ) cover and none other than Sammy Hagar gave me a complement for doing it accurately.

[Jeff Leites]

If it weren't for covers, I'd only have one tune to play

[Notes_Norton]

I've been in bands that did "note for note" covers. Before DJs, that's what we were supposed to do. We had an agent who said, "They made a million dollars with that song, do you think you could do it better?"

 

Once DJs entered the night club scene, we no longer had to try to duplicate the record.

 

I never felt like a trained monkey doing note-for-note covers, perhaps because before that I was in a concert band doing Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Dvorak, Brahms, etc., and covering the music of great classical composers.

 

I find nothing disrespectful about doing covers, nothing disrespectful to adapting them to your own personal tastes, and nothing wrong with doing original material.

 

When the great artists played songs written by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Carole King & Gerry Goffin, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman, and so many other great songwriters, they were basically doing cover songs.

 

Some songwriters can be successful entertainers, others either can not or choose not to entertain but to let others play their songs.

 

Me? I'm not very good at writing songs. I have trouble with lyrics. Whenever I attempt it, they sound trite and corny. So I'm very thankful to the songwriters and I hope they are happy with the way I cover their compositions.

 

Of course, there is more than one right way to play music, and as long as the music falls on the ears of people who like it, you are doing the right thing.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[Phil O'Keefe]

I guess it depends on the situation. In some places, the expectation from the crowd and the venue itself may be for you to do fairly accurate covers, although what really matters to bars and casinos (and people at wedding receptions / parties) is whether you're doing your job and keeping people entertained while they drink / gamble / party. The better you're able to pull that off, the less they'll probably care about whether or not you're modernizing the song or doing a unique arrangement of it.

 

As far as most of the bands I've played in, whenever we've done covers we've tried to stick to the original vibe, ambience and mood of the song, although in many cases they haven't been note for note renditions. Where I'm much more likely to take that approach is in the studio, where as an exercise I find it fun / challenging / educational to occasionally pick a song and try to replicate it as closely as possible - not just the notes, but the the vibe, the whole arrangement, the "sound" of the recording - everything.

 

When I saw your thread title AJ, I was thinking along different lines: Is it ethical to do covers?

 

I don't think there's anything immoral about performing something that was composed by someone else - there's a long tradition of that in music. Having said that, if someone wrote a song and said they'd prefer it if no one else performed it, even though it would still be legal to do so, I would honor their request. Same with someone who knew about my covers and asked me to stop covering their song - I'd honor their wishes.

 

I think it would be immoral to record something for the first time / first release without permission (right of first publication belongs to the copyright holder, and they get to determine who gets to record the song first); that would still be a "cover" even though it would be the first time the public would hear the song. An example of that would be the Jagger / Richards composition "Wild Horses", which was first recorded / released by the Flying Burrito Brothers. If Gram Parsons wasn't buds with the Stones and didn't have their permission, using / recording / covering that song would not have been cool IMHO, but he did have their permission, so IMHO it's totally cool.

 

 

 

[1001gear]

I don't think there's anything unethical about playing the "repertoire" .Half of it is stolen material in the first place FCS. (No I don't have a song by song accounting.) I do take offense at the strata of pro players that, all they know of music is what they are able to copy. In that regard the big studios did the research and marketing to bring the people, people kind of magic. Definitely not DIY stuff.

[Vito Corleone]

Mostly a combination of the last two. My cover band's MO is to learn the song "note for note" but then incorporate it into our own sound and style of playing. Which can sometimes take it pretty far from where we started with it. But we rarely try to completely re-invent the wheel with song or play it a completely different style.

 

Just finding that sweet spot that works for us and still sells the song to the audience.

[Jeff Leites]

I've been in bands that did "note for note" covers. Before DJs' date=' that's what we were supposed to do. We had an agent who said, "They made a million dollars with that song, do you think you could do it better?"[/quote']

 

There are always variations on how a song could go. One way was chosen for the original recording, but others can easily be more appealing to someone else.

 

 

[Anderton]

I don't do covers often but when I do, it's because I believe the song is really good, and suitable to be presented in more than one way. This doesn't apply to doing covers in a bar band of course, but in doing covers for my own pleasure, I want the version to be really different. I pretty much agree with the agent who said, "They made a million dollars with that song, do you think you could do it better?" No, I can't do it better...but I can do it different, and reveal a different facet of a song.

[AJ6stringsting]

If every band was a covers band, music wouldn't progress

 

I write my own stuff. I don't like doing covers. It's nice when people cover my stuff, though

 

If you walked into a club and some band was doing your music

Would you want to hear their spun on it ?

Or how would you feel if they did an exact cover of your song ?

[AJ6stringsting]

I love doing covers, it educates me in the artist style , expands my playing style and vocabulary in technique / composition.

I just bought the new mix of Sgt. Pepper and my 9 year old daughter love it so much she is now constantly playing my old Beatles vinyl records. Now I'm relearning things. Who knows, maybe there is good chance, that she may want to become a musician too.

[davd_indigo]

As is sometimes said, "there's than one way to skin a cat". Some use a familiar song as a point of departure, rather than simply copying. I saw Joe Cocker on Austin City Limits one time. In a short interview at the end of the show he was asked about doing covers. He said "I prefer to think of them as interpretations".

 

These guys also do an interesting version of "Iron Man".

 

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

[video=youtube;q9hOSZGMXlI]

[Bucksstudent]

I don't play live, and I only recorded maybe three covers in the past decade. However, I am friends with a lot of people in the local music scene, and you basically have to play covers in order to get any attention. People who play only originals are usually relegated to open mic nights, but people will fill a bar if you play a setlist of songs they know. They throw in some of their originals and try to sell their CDs, but not many people pay attention to their stuff.

 

But it takes time and effort to make even one cover song sound great. Most bar bands don't have the time to do what Johnny Cash did with "Hurt," for instance.

[1001gear]

Love that trio. So demented.

[Anderton]

I don't play live' date=' and I only recorded maybe three covers in the past decade. However, I am friends with a lot of people in the local music scene, and you basically have to play covers in order to get any attention. People who play only originals are usually relegated to open mic nights, but people will fill a bar if you play a setlist of songs they know. They throw in some of their originals and try to sell their CDs, but not many people pay attention to their stuff.[/quote']

 

Yup. I'm considering putting together a "just for the fun of it" live act to play locally, and assume that only covers will be acceptable. So the task is to find songs I can do, arrange them so they're totally recognizable but a little different, and forget that I write original material.

 

FWIW I was listening to your music and was going to ask if you played it live. I thought it would be cool to go into a club and hear.

 

But it takes time and effort to make even one cover song sound great. Most bar bands don't have the time to do what Johnny Cash did with "Hurt," for instance.

 

​Yes, which is why I'd much rather hear someone's take on a song than a note-for-note emulation.

[Bucksstudent]

 

Yup. I'm considering putting together a "just for the fun of it" live act to play locally, and assume that only covers will be acceptable. So the task is to find songs I can do, arrange them so they're totally recognizable but a little different, and forget that I write original material.

 

FWIW I was listening to your music and was going to ask if you played it live. I thought it would be cool to go into a club and hear.

 

​Yes, which is why I'd much rather hear someone's take on a song than a note-for-note emulation.

 

First, thank you for listening. Most people don't make the effort.

 

I have a video of me playing in front of three class rooms, and while I didn't suck, they all looked incredibly bored. I was reading John Green back when John Green was still relevant to me, and he had a passage from Leaves of Grass in his novel, so I looped a riff and read Walt Whitman aloud to thirty high school kids and several teachers. Later, one of them asked if I knew who Andy Kaufman was.

 

I don't know, though. I don't think anyone would want to listen. Even I would get bored after a while.

[Notes_Norton]

I agree, we can do it differently.

 

But in the days before DJs and playing single bars, what the agent was saying was that our job was to cover the song as close to the record as possible, because that's what the audience wanted to hear.

 

Now DJs have that task, and it's OK with me.

 

I still do some covers as close to the original as I can. It's because I like them that way. Others I do differently, because I like them that way.

 

One more thing. Even the close to the original covers end up evolving to our own take on the song. We'll hear a song we've been doing for a long time on the radio and remark on how much we changed it without knowing we were changing it.

[Notes_Norton]

I make my living playing live in front of an audience, and have been doing that most of my life.

 

Long ago I realized I'm not lecturing the audience but engaged in a dialog with them. I pay attention to the audience and get feedback from them. I want to do both what pleases me and what pleases them.

 

Their pleasure heightens my pleasure and my pleasure heightens theirs. And if that involves doing a few things I wouldn't choose to do for myself, I'm all for it.

 

It's a little like having sex with a partner, but on a different level. A give to get situation.

 

We just learned a song by America for a customer. It's one I would never learn for myself, and it's probably about 90% cover in the music, but the vocals are going to morph into our style. I did add an improvised guitar solo for me to play (I like ad lib). But I figure if the guy wants to hear an America song, it should be close to what he is asking for (I learned Tin Man and most of the lyrics make absolutely no sense to me).

 

It's not a bad song, and will work well for those dinner sets before it's time to crank it up and kick out the jams.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

 

[elsongs]

I play covers the way I want to do them. Sometimes I'll play them note-for-note to honor the original arrangement. Sometimes I'll update/improve/re-imagine a song, and when I do, sometimes I'll keep the original melody intact, sometimes I won't. It depends on the song.

 

Usually though I'll cover a song that's one of my favorite tunes of all time or by a certain artist (after a certain influential artist has died, my band will perform a song of theirs as tribute.

 

Most people on YouTube cover songs for no other reason than it'll get them clicks/views/likes though.

[rlspencer]

I make the covers I do more MINE by adding lyrics or verses and man oh man when I do it live there are folkes who will YELL that the lyrics ain't right and then other folkes will come up and tell me that they liked my version of a given song. I mainly do em to suit me and mostly others like em too. I try to learn the cover exact but have to play to my strengths. covers are important in order to learn techniques and styles.

[James Clausen]

Awhile back I became interested in a Billy Jo Shaver song, so I went on Youtube and found three videos of him doing three radically different versions of his own song. Similarly, I have read a lot of interviews of bands who go out to promote an album and after playing the songs everynite for a couple of weeks, find that they have evolved into versions that they wish they had put on the recording.

Might be why they call it art rather than duplication.

[Notes_Norton]

You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians, or you can play for the general public --- and if you are good enough, you will get the audience you asked for.

 

I play for the public and they never have let me down.

 

But I also mix in things for myself, once you have won the audience, you can play some for yourself and they will like it. I have fun WITH the audience, give them what they want, and take from them what I need. Sounds like an old Donna Summer song "I got what you want, you got what I need."

 

But then, I'm weird. I like all kinds of music. I've played classical, rock, jazz, blues, country, Caribbean, Latin-American, and plenty of other styles. I enjoy the variety. I never want to be classified as a Rock Musician or a Jazz Musician, just Musician. Hopefully a good or great musician

 

I like doing covers like the record. I like improvisation. I like re-arrangements of other's songs and I like slight departures of other's songs. I've added verses to songs, we do one original parody song, and I just have different kinds of fun on stage.

 

For me, doing only covers, only originals, only one genre of music or only one other thing would be boring. Each gig is a new gig, each audience is a new audience, what will please them because I know pleasing them is returned back to me and that pleases me (it's like making love - give a lot to get a lot in return).

 

I've had a house gig going on 10 years now, did another for 20 on a different night, and have over 97% of our gigs either a return engagement or someone who heard us on a gig and wants to hire us. I haven't done cold calls in decades, and I'm making a living on my own terms and having a lot of fun doing it.

 

Life is good. And they guy we learned the America song (we did "Tin Man") was very appreciative, told the manager we are the best of the bands she hires, and we're working through the summer slow season. BTW, we do a close cover of "Tin Man" except I added a guitar solo in it (because I love improvisation). The words make no sense to me but the song is kind-of fun to play.

 

Insights and incites by Notes