I owe my life to the power of cover songs.

My parents met at a restaurant: my mom was a waitress; my dad was the guitar player in a cover band. His group, Yesterday & Today (named after a Beatles LP with an infamous cover photo), were hired to play a mix of New Wave hits and 60s power pop, songs like “Pump It Up” by Elvis Costello and the Attractions or “Baby Blue” by Badfinger.

So I was bummed when my friends who host The Indie 500 Podcast Substack reached out to me asking if I had any thoughts to share for their recent episode devoted to all things cover song and I wasn’t able to participate due to timing.

But of course I have thoughts.

The Three Qualities of a Good Cover

The first thing the performer needs is Taste. The ability to identify a well-crafted song: not a performance piece (hear about the distinction below), but a song—a melody, chord changes, and lyric that is built to withstand innovation, genre-bending, and/or deconstruction to its barest parts. You also want to find a Goldilocks balance between: not too obvious a choice, but not too obscure either.

The second requirement is Transformation; revealing something new (otherwise, why would we not just go back and listen to the original song again?). This can be a change in the sonic palette (like how M. Ward’s “Let’s Dance” translates Bowie and Nile Rodgers’ 80s funk into a lonesome folk tune), a new arrangement (the stripped-down prayer of Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” versus the overblown gospel choirs of Cohen’s original), or even just a clever shift in context (originally written by his dad Loudon Wainwright III as an ode to misanthropy and solitude, Rufus Wainwright’s “One Man Guy” becomes a winking declaration of monogamy when sung by a gay man).

And the last aspect is both the most crucial and the hardest to quantify: let’s call it Testimony (I can’t help but alliterate). To testify is “to make a statement based on personal knowledge or belief.” True artists are able to shine through even when it’s not their own words or music they’re using, smuggling an intense emotionality and/or deep inner truth about themselves through the poetry of others. This requires a Hero’s Journey of sorts1—delving into the song, surrendering one’s self to its moods and movements, finding a personal catharsis—and returning with a story to share.

It’s through this alchemy—song choice (taste), novelty (transformation), and emotional resonance (testimony)—that the best cover versions are born.

My Favorite Cover

My dad loved to stay up all hours of the night going down the rabbit hole of YouTube, finding performance clips of his favorite bands. I have vivid memories as a teenager of being summoned away from whatever Playstation game I was playing at 2am with my brother so that he could share a video with me (usually accompanied with a corresponding verbal treatise on Why It Mattered).

After I moved out, my dad and I would email YouTube discoveries to each other. One of the last songs I remember him sending me was a clip of Paul Simon performing at Radio City Music Hall for a concert called An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson. I don’t know if we had ever even talked about Paul Simon before. He was not, in the parlance of Marc Maron, “one of our Guys.” But we both loved the Beach Boys and, in particular, we were admirers of the tragic genius of Brian Wilson.

In the video, with a casualness bordering on laziness, Simon takes the stage dressed like he’s on his way to Trader Joe’s. I remember thinking to myself, before clicking to watch: “He couldn’t be bothered to dress up even a little?”2

And then I hit play.

Allow me a digression3. I have another, somewhat unrelated theory about music and performance. This will all come around, I promise.

If you’ve ever lived with a musician, you may have noticed this too: the greatest performances don’t happen on a stage. Instead they happen on a couch, alone, as the musician mindlessly noodles on their instrument—usually while wearing pajamas and watching TV. There is a raw honesty that comes from not being watched. They don’t care about mistakes, or praise, or anything. The Zen buddhists would say they’ve achieved a kind of nirvana4.

Even in the best public performances, there is something of a Schrödinger's cat paradox happening (Schrödinger's song?)—the act of observation changes the observed. It becomes impossible to fully abandon your self-consciousness—to ignore the lights, the cameras, the audience—and lose yourself in the moment, blissfully unseen and honest.

But Paul Simon comes close.

If you told me “Surfer Girl” was his most cherished song, I would believe you. If you told me this was the first time he had ever played it, I would believe you. It somehow has the ragged quality of a practice run-through and also timeless perfection. The only word I can think of to describe his voice is “angelic.” Everything about it is so, so simple. And as any artist will tell you, simplicity is actually the most difficult thing to pull off.

This version checks off all three of my cover song criteria: choosing a campy pop song5 about surfing—written by a guy who never surfed—that harbors a deep inner beauty (taste), the complexity of the chords and vocal arrangements are revealed as elegant acts of impeccable craftsmanship (transformation), and it’s all communicated through the lens of Paul Simon’s unique life experience and talents (testimony).

Maybe there are two kinds of children: the Original Composition—one who rejects the melodies, the chords, and the words of their parents and forges a new identity—and the Cover Version—the ones who echo their parents, inheriting their flaws and their strengths, with only their taste to guide them as they evolve and grow based on their own personal journey.

In high school, I was in a cover band called π Eating Contest (being meta, as always, we covered covers, such as Placebo’s “20th Century Boy”). These days, in the evening, I wind down at the piano, learning new chords (sharps and minor sevenths are my current obsession), singing to myself, having fun.

Watching this rendition of “Surfer Girl” reminds me of being a teenager—pausing my game and going to the kitchen for a snack—and passing by the living room where my dad would often be sitting, guitar in his lap, softly strumming and singing to himself, totally lost, at peace, not a care in the world.

I guess that’s why it’s my favorite.

The final issue of Spectrum came out this week. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in the coming weeks. The trade paperback—collecting all six issues—is scheduled to be released in mid-July. If you’ve read the whole thing, Dave and I would love to hear what you thought! Let us know in the comments.

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