Tune du Jour: “So It Goes” – Nick Lowe
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes: The Bigger Lovers vs. Olly Hite vs. The Click Five with Chris Cote
VOTE, COMMENT, then COUNT FLOWERS ON THE WALL
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For hungry eyes that could not speak,
Said even little doggies have got to eat
The Original
Nick Lowe:
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes
The Bigger Lovers vs. Olly Hite vs. The Click Five with Chris Cote
The Bigger Lovers:
Olly Hite:
The Click Five with Chris Cote:
SPACE
Oh the disharmony! Much like Harlan County there are no neutrals here. It is your solemn responsibility to decide which cover song prevails. In other words … Which Side Are You On?!!?
Disclaimer: Votes cast from Florida may or may not be counted.
cover me impressed 
I had no idea who any of these artists were (aside from Nick Lowe, of course). Nevertheless, I’m definitely going with The Click 5 / Chris Cote. I think their rockin’ version really captured the feel of the song. The other two versions are also good. But there needs to be a rockin’ swing to make this song interesting. And Click 5 capture it.
The pseudo “Reelin’ in the Years” intro in the Bigger Lovers’ version really threw me. Then I started hearing it and checked back to see if I had clicked the original Nick Lowe version by mistake. This isn’t just a cover. It’s a downright copy. I guess mimicry is flattery, but this is a little TOO close to the original. Olly Hite’s version was great, I thought. I loved how he squeezes Praise You by Fatboy Slim into the song. Creative. But I agree with Dougie. This song is a rocker, and a piano version falls a little short. I give it to Click 5. I wish the sound was better in the video.
I have to say, this is one of my favorite albums. It is consistently excellent, from start to finish. It took decades for the album to finally make it to CD, which I bought immediately, and play a lot. Lots of good bonus material on it. The real rocker on that album is Heart of the City, my favorite.
Agreed. Bigger Lovers’ basically just played it exactly by the numbers… too exactly for my taste. But I really did like their introduction consisting of Reelin’ In The Years. It emphasized how similar is the chord pattern of both songs. It also reminded me of something Me First & the Gimmie Gimmies would have done… and gives me an opportunity to name drop Me First & the Gimmie Gimmies here on covermeimpressed, which should bring a smile to Dubbsy’s face.
Here’s a studio version by The Click Five:
I usually go with the sound quality of studio versions for this blog. But I thought the live version I chose (and there were many) had pretty good sound quality, included Mr. Cote doing some great vocals and, most of all, it brought back so many great memories of my youth. How many times were we in a small venue stomping about to a band that at any given moment churned out what sounded like the best damn music on the planet? Good times, really good times!
I must say I’m a little surprised. I thought you guys (i.e. Arnie & Dougy) would go with The Bigger Love. Not sure why I thought that but I did. I voted for The Click Five and preceded with caution and dread to the comments to see what I missed. But not today! No, clown time is over! I’m riding high in April, skanking to the reggae, flying Mother Nature’s silver seed … like cats on holiday!
I really liked the Click Five version, in fact, thought it was better than the original, very bright, and lots of energy…but, there’s always a but, right? I gave it to Olly, he just took the song somewhere else…
I never heard of any of the acts competing for today’s prize. I don’t even recognize this song, nor have I ever bought this album or anything else by Nick Lowe. I never heard much of his work; maybe a couple of radio songs. Never disliked him, thought his sound was reasonably pleasant, just not enough to buy anything. If Arnie says it’s one of his favorite albums, maybe I should look into it. I voted The Bigger Lovers ’cause I liked the sound best, but I also agree with those who said it was very similar (perhaps too similar) to the original.
I’m surprised you never heard of him, Kerry. He was a close associate of Elvis Costello. In fact, In early 1978 I saw a concert of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Mink DeVille, back in those early days of punk. Anyway, Nick Lowe put out the album Pure Pop for Now People, and it was truly excellent. A bunch of great songs, many of which are done representing different genres, all of them succeeding. One song, Marie Provost, tells the tale of a silent film star whose career failed after the talkies began. She killed herself in her hotel room, and her corpse was found by the police partially consumed by her dog. “That hungry little dachshund”, sings Nick Lowe. It’s all in there. The import version was called Jesus of Cool. I remember when it came out, the only difference between the two albums was that the song “They Called it Rock” on Pure Pop was renamed “Shake and Pop”. Same melody, different lyrics, different mix. It took decades for the record company to put this classic album out on CD, for some reason. About two years ago, it finally came out, with all sorts of bonus songs, which was nice. My only qualm about it was that the song order on the CD was different than the song order on vinyl, which had been burned into my head over the decades from repeated playing. I see that You Tube has the entire side A on vinyl. This is how it should be heard:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg8eH_LsYRM
Here’s side B. Not as strong as side A, but excellent:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oro5_QrdlOQ&nohtml5=False
Thanks for the reply. As I wrote, if you say it’s consistently great and ranks among your favorite albums, I’ll give it a listen and perhaps order the CD. Thanks for providing the link. I probably owe it to you after you agreed to listen to The Zombies’ “Odessey and Oracle” (their misspelling).
For the record, I wasn’t saying I hadn’t heard OF Lowe. The only song I know off the top of my head is “Cruel To Be Kind”, and I also remember “Teacher Teacher” by his band Rockpile. I knew he was associated with Elvis Costello and Stiff Records. I see now that he produced the first few Costello albums, which I bought at the time.
I remember one of his albums was titled “Jesus of Cool” in the U.K., but had to be re-titled for the U.S. market with a less-blasphemous name.
But, back in the day, one had to rely on radio play, music videos on TV, hearing a friend’s album, or the old fashioned way of buying the albums. I like good, pleasant, catchy pop, and I somewhat liked the little I heard.
In August,1980, I hitchhiked with two friends to Mosport Park in Toronto Canada for the Heatwave festival, an amazing outdoor concert that featured The B52s, the Pretenders, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, and Rockpile. (The Clash were supposed to be the headliners, but they pulled out in a spat with Elvis Costello’s management over who would get top billing. Still bitter about that.) Anyway, as you can imagine, it was a terrific concert. I was reasonably close to the stage, and I liked the song “Let’s Eat” that Nick Lowe performed live on the Stiffs Live album. I had two paper plates with me that day. I wrote “Let’s” on one of them, and “Eat” on the other. As Lowe was finishing a song, I held up the plates. Lowe saw it and yelled out “Let’s Eat!!”. But he didn’t play the song.
I wrote a long comment, but it didn’t post 😦