How I record cover songs so they aren't a waste of everyone's time

If you can't beat em, make em WEIRDER

In my twenties, I spent 4 years running a covers band called Co-Star. Great name, right? Good work, guitarist Gareth!

I booked the shows, played bass and sang. It was an education in many things – how far away Aberdeen actually is in a van from London, how to file a CCJ when the agent refuses to pay, how to dodge drunk wedding guests. I also learned a lot about how songs are put together¹.

As for recording cover versions, that’s something I only started doing when I launched my Correspondent’s Club subscription in early 2019 (initially called Supersub Club).

When Richard from Battery Thinkers requested I make my own version of his band’s track “This Is The Sound” I was delighted at the idea. It’s rare that a musician actively asks someone else to have a go at redoing their work – in my experience, we’re not the most humble bunch – plus the invitation came via one of my Bespoke Sponsorships, with a generous contribution to the Penfriend project.

Thank you, Richard x

I think a good song should still be immersive and affecting when you strip everything away apart from the main vocal line and a simple instrumental accompaniment. But when you add in the other building blocks – drums, bass, melody lines on guitar or synths or something else – you’re creating a world within the song, an alternate reality the listener can step inside for a few minutes. An escape.

I love “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue, and I bet I’d still enjoy it if she sang it along to an acoustic guitar. It’s a really good song. But when you add the hypnotic beats and subtle synth lines, you reside in a different universe for 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

Go back and listen to just how many bursts of different sounds support the vocals in that song…it’s a complex, but deceptively simple arrangement – and for once, I’ll accept the choice to fade out at the end (I’m not usually a fan).

[I’ve just realised my pop references are 24 years old – oh my.]

I’ve only recorded a handful of covers over the years, so re-arranging “This Is The Sound” was a fun but slightly daunting challenge. When I listened to the original song, it sounded just right. I listened, I really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t think why there would need to be a cover of this song in the world. That was the sound.

Here’s the original:

However much I enjoyed the original version, I needed to honour Richard’s request, and so I set to work on picking out the key parts that I felt were integral to the world of the song without seeking to recreate what was already there.

You might have noticed that covers are often faster or slower than the original, perhaps a sad version of a happy song or vice versa. Creating contrast in speed or tone is the most straightforward way of creating space between the original and the cover, and I decided to go for “slow and weird”.

As I wrote to Richard in a status update email: “Your song is so great as it is that the only option was to GO WEIRD”.

How did I do?

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Your turn: what are your favourite recorded cover versions and why?

Love
Laura xxx

PS members can download my version of ‘This Is The Sound” song here and get my entire digital archive of 22 zine + music bundles, 7 albums + more immediately.

1. Writing this down brought up so many memories from these jaunts to play other peoples’ songs at weddings around the land.

How about the one where the bride and groom had paid to fly all their mates to the South of France and were fuming all day because they didn't look like they were enjoying themselves enough?

They'd horribly underestimated how long everything would take, so between the expected stage time of 8pm til gone midnight we sat waiting in the kitchen only to be brought out at 12.30am to set up and play. Most of the guests had gone to bed.

The bride sent me a nasty email a few weeks later saying I'd "ruined" her big day by pointing out we couldn't play music outside in the drizzle because electricity + water = bang ouch potential death.

Oh, and we had to sleep on weirdly stained beds in an outhouse.

Before we left London for the ill-fated show, guitarist Gareth bought a box of French Fancies as a visual joke. In the end, we had to share those meagre rations plus a single dry baguette between five of us for dinner.

Music is so glamorous. I stay home now.