What are the Best Beatles Covers? Link Drop
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What are the Best Beatles Covers?
In honor of Black History Month, Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times highlighted 13 great Beatles covers by Black artists. This got me thinking of the greatest covers of The Fab Four, race aside.
If the massive covers and samples database maintained by Second Hand Songs is to be trusted, The Beatles are the most covered artists of the 20th century, outpacing George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Burt Bacharach, and Bob Dylan by a wide margin. In other words, there’s a lot to choose from.
I love Beatles covers because they usually demonstrate just how rich and varied their catalog is. Below are my 13 favorites, though you can see a playlist with some more if you click here. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
“Savoy Truffle” by Ella Fitzgerald: In my mind, Ella Fitzgerald exists in a completely different timeline than The Beatles. But The First Lady of Jazz lived until 1996, giving her lots of time to cover The Fab Four. And she did it a few times. I love this cover because Fitzgerald sings George Harrison’s ode to chocolate like a true dessert lover.
“Day Tripper” by Sergio Mendes: Who knew that one of The Beatles’ greatest guitar riffs worked well with bossa nova flair? Sergio Mendes, apparently.
“Rocky Raccoon” by Scary Pockets: Though I’m not a fan of “Rocky Raccoon,” this version makes the country and western song groovier than many funk songs.
“Got to Get You Into My Life” by Earth, Wind & Fire: Speaking of groove, this funky cover of Paul McCartney’s love letter to marijuana is magnificent. Fun fact: This song was recorded for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a horrendous movie starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, with guest appearances by Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, and George Burns.
“Here, There and Everywhere” by Emmylou Harris: I love Beatles performances so much that I often prefer covers that reimagine their songs. But Emmylou Harris’s voice is so pure that her faithful rendition of “Here, There and Everywhere” gives Paul McCartney a run for his money.
“She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” by Joe Cocker: If you were to ask a random group of strangers what the best Beatles cover was, there’s a good chance they’d say Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends.” For all intents and purposes, that’s the canonical recording of the Lennon-McCartney song. But I prefer Cocker’s version of “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.”
“Happiness is a Warm Gun” by The Breeders: In recording one of The Beatles strangest structural songs, The Breeders make it feel like John Lennon invented punk rock.
“And I Love Her” by Kurt Cobain: When Brett Morgan was making the documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, he uncovered a bedroom recording the Nirvana frontman made of “And I Love Her” before founding his famous band. The recording makes clear the oft-discussed point that Cobain’s songwriting combined Beatles-esque melodies with punk aesthetics.
“Hey Jude” by Wilson Pickett: It’s really hard to outdo the magnificent crescendo in The Beatles version of “Hey Jude,” but the husk in Wilson Pickett’s voice and lead guitar from Duane Allman really gives those musical Liverpudlians a run for their money.
“Let It Be” by Aretha Franklin: A few years ago, Rolling Stone ranked the greatest vocalists of all time. I don’t think anyone disagreed with their top pick: Aretha Franklin. Her recording of “Let It Be” makes the song seem like it was written by the hand of God.
“Eleanor Rigby” by Stanley Jordan: Stanley Jordan is one of a few people that can claim to have reinvented how the guitar is played. Using a two-handed tapping technique with the instrument tuned in perfect fourths, Jordan makes the guitar sound like an orchestra. His rendition of “Eleanor Rigby,” one of The Beatles most haunting songs, is a perfect example of this.
“Yesterday” by Marvin Gaye: When Marvin Gaye sings “Yesterday,” it almost makes you feel like Lennon and McCartney should have just been songwriters and left the performing to someone else.
“A Day in the Life” by Jeff Beck: “A Day in the Life” is not just considered The Beatles finest work but maybe the finest composition by a popular group ever. The idea of rendering the entire song as an instrumental with only guitar, bass, and drums feels like a fool’s errand. But Jeff Beck is no fool. He is arguably the greatest guitar player of all time.
News from Inside the Music World
“Spotify Adds Record 38 Million Monthly Active Users” by Caitlin Huston (The Hollywood Reporter)
It was a good quarter for the music industry. Spotify added a whole lot of subscribers, and the company said they will continue to develop interactive musical experiences powered by AI, like their DJ feature. They claim to want to combat AI slop but have not been very specific on how they will do this.
Sony Music Entertainment, the second biggest label in the world after Universal Music Group, also had a good quarter, posting a 13% revenue increase. They listed their best-performing artists as Bad Bunny, ROSALÍA, Tyler the Creator, SZA, and … Pink Floyd. Yes, the decades-old rockers are still generating gobs of money. Other top sellers included Tate McRae, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and Depeche Mode.
Oh, yeah, ASCAP also reported record revenues of $1.9 billion in 2025. $1.7 billion, or 90%, were distributed to songwriters. That’s a 3.7% increase from 2024. I guess everyone is getting paid for their music. Well, not me, but everyone else.
“DistroKid, repped by Goldman Sachs and Raine, exploring a sale” by Murray Stassen (MusicBusinessWorldwide)
Distrokid, the independent distributor that claims to handle “30% to 40% of new music releases globally,” is readying for a sale. The rumored price is around $2 billion. Should they find a buyer, it will send shockwaves through the independent music community.
“Britney Spears Sells Her Song Catalog” by Ben Sisario (The New York Times)
Britney Spears, one of the biggest pop stars of the 2000s, joined a long list of major artists who have sold their catalog. Spears sent her recordings to Primary Wave, the independent publisher that has gobbled up tons of catalogs over the years, including Bob Marley, Stevie Nicks, Frankie Valli, Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, Burt Bacharach, Prince, Ray Charles, Aerosmith, and so many others. The price was not disclosed but suggests that this space is still hot.
Neil Young—whose catalog is now partially owned by Concord, another group that’s been on a spending spree—has taken the opposite approach to Spears. He gifted one year of free access to his archive to every resident of Greenland in order to “ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats [the country is] experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.” I’m sure that will ease diplomatic tensions.
Too Many Deaths
Over the last month, I was upset to see way to many musician obituaries. Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night, Billy Bass Nelson of Funkadelic, Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down, Fred Smith of Television, Andrew Ranken of The Pogues, LaMonte McLemore of The 5th Dimension, and Greg Brown of Cake sadly all died.
These artists worked on tons of great music, some of which are undeniable classics (e.g., “Marquee Moon,” “Up, Up and Away,” etc.). But if I were forced to highlight a single track that exists in this artist pantheon, I’d go with Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World.”
Three Dog Night were huge hitmakers in the 1970s, (appropriately) topping the Billboard Hot 100 three times. Though they never got much critical acclaim, “Joy to the World” continues to rip and Chuck Negron’s impassioned vocal about a wine-drinking bullfrog are a big reason as to why.
Music History to Write Home About
The Super Bowl was last weekend. Global superstar Bad Bunny played the half time show. Given that Bad Bunny almost exclusively sings in Spanish, this (naturally) became a political event. President Trump, for example, called the 12-minute performance “absolutely terrible.”
You can read a million takes about this elsewhere. For this newsletter, I wanted to note how pop stars headlining the half time show is a somewhat new phenomenon that began with Michael Jackson in 1993. Before that, half time shows often featured odd themes and marching bands. 1977’s half time show, for example, was just a couple of Disney songs.
The Grammys also occurred since the last time I did a link drop newsletter. Like the Super Bowl, the award show created a political firestorm because (a) many artists wore “ICE OUT” pins and (b) our friend Bad Bunny won Album of the Year. As with the Super Bowl, you can read a ton about that elsewhere.
I want to highlight one other moment from the night, though. After Cher came out to accept a lifetime achievement award, she was supposed to announce Record of the Year. Because she started walking away before doing that, host Trevor Noah had to call her back. Then she announced the winner as “Luther Vandross,” the legendary singer that has been dead for over two decades.
The actual winner was Kendrick Lamar’s “luther,” a sultry record that samples Vandross’s cover of “If This World Were Mine.” The flub was by far the most memorable moment of the night.
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, funk legend George Clinton weighed in on many fascinating questions. Funkiest person to ever live? Pop Staples, Ray Charles, or James Jamerson. Least funky person alive? Donald Trump. What do you want people to say about you after you die? “He made me sick, but he gave me the antidote.”
Clinton’s answer to the question “How do you feel about white artists doing black music?” is the most fascinating of all, though:
I’d bite off the Beatles, or anybody else. It’s all one world, one planet and one groove. You’re supposed to learn from each other, blend from each other, and it moves around like that. You see that rocket ship leave yesterday? We can maybe leave this planet. We gonna be dealing with aliens. You think black and white gonna be a problem? Wait till you start running into motherfuckers with three or four dicks! Bug-eyed motherfuckers! They could be ready to party, or they could be ready to eat us. We don’t know, but we’ve got to get over this shit of not getting along with each other.
Through all the insanity in this quote, Clinton gets to the heart of the matter. I’ve found most discussions of cultural appropriation to be either unsatisfactory or a gross misunderstanding of how creativity works. From now on, I will point people to George Clinton whenever this topic comes up.
Ella Langley’s “Choosin' Texas” hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 last week. It’s quite an achievement for anyone to top the pop charts, but it’s especially impressive for Langley. “Choosin' Texas” is a country song by a woman. While the popularity of country has ebbed and flowed on the charts over the decades, a country song by a woman topping the charts is very, very rare.
Beyond Beyoncé’s stopping and clapping “TEXAS HOLD 'EM,” the only country chart-toppers by women in recent memory are Carrie Underwood’s “Inside Your Heaven” (2005) and Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” (1981). Frankly, I think you could make the case that the last time a true country song by a woman topped the charts was in 1968 when Jeannie C. Riley got to number one with “Harper Valley P.T.A.”
Online Posts That Gave Me Life
A Few Videos I Enjoyed
Art Garfunkel closed out Clive Davis’s famous pre-Grammys party with a moving version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” probably the finest vocal he ever recorded.
I saw some people on Twitter talking about The Mighty Mighty Bostones 1997 performance on The Late Show with Conan O’Brien. In the video, there is one member of the band who is just dancing.
Someone joked that “Before 2008, you could be a full-time member of a hit ska band and never have to sing or play an instrument.” Someone else quoted that tweet noting that it seemed “to suggest the global financial crisis ruined ska.” The whole thing not only had me laughing but reminded me that the band’s “The Impression That I Get” rips.
In 1986, The Replacements were allegedly banned from Saturday Night Live for their drunken, profanity-laced performance. Oddly, when I was re-watching the performance last week, it didn’t come off like that. It just seemed like good, old-fashioned rock 'n' roll. Long live Paul Westerberg!
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Uncle George with the quote!!!
Great list. I would throw in Hour Glass' (proto-Allman Brothers) "Norwegian Wood" and the live version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from Concert for the People of Bangladesh.
https://youtu.be/m4LdBF9-c_M?si=fpzsrHaZ7NHYe7qk&t=1
https://youtu.be/cVHA-GzBiEI?si=TBQzKekfPd06Lh6p&t=1
And Prince on "My Guitar"
https://youtu.be/dWRCooFKk3c?si=BizaFOG-VoI6VKWb&t=1
But can't argue with any in your list nor in Lindsay Zoladz' list