I loves me some overly melodramatic folk. Sometimes. I also loved Harold and Maude. One of the greatest movies ever about what everyone who listens to Cat Stevens wants to do: Attempt suicide.
2. Trouble-Pearl Jam. An Eddie Vedder emoting twofer!
3. Here Comes My Baby-Yo La Tengo. From their fabulous “Fakebook” album.
4. Father and Son-Leigh Nash. When I was in college, I was listening to this song over and over. I was massively depressed, and I couldn’t figure out where he “had to go” to. My roommate came in and saw me sitting in the dark hitting rewind on the tape deck, and I asked him: “Where is this guy going?” My sadistic and dry roommate pondered for a few moments, and then said: “He’s going to die.” I don’t think he’s right anymore, but at the time death seemed like a great idea. OH! The joys of heroin!
5. If You Want To Sing Out-Ghost Mice. A very strange singalong.
6. Trouble-Kristin Hersh (of Throwing Muses). I loved loved loved! this band! And Kristin’s solo work is nothing to sneeze at, either.
7. Mr. Brownstone (Guns N’ Roses) & Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne) & The Wind (Cat Stevens)-Tenacious D. Jack Black singing Cat.
8. Trouble-Elliot Smith. The only singer/songwriter MORE depressing than Cat!
9. Plastic Jesus/Where Do the Children Play-Jack Johnson
10. Peace Train-Gary Jules. Remember how Gary turned Tears For Fears’ funeral dirge “Mad World” into a slow-burning, mystical somewhat-less-depressing pop song that instead of making you want to die, it just made you want to hit yourself in the face with a shovel? (See the soundtrack to Donnie Darko.) Well, now he takes the most optimistic, upbeat Cat Stevens chant and turns it into a slow-burning, mystical somewhat-less-depressing pop song that instead of making you want to die, it just made you want to hit yourself in the face with a shovel. Great job!
11. Wild World-Matt Nathanson.
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Have always loved that Kristin Hersh cover. And the Elliot Smith one is gorgeous too.
Comment by Agnes — January 13, 2009 @ 7:02 am
great list! any chance you could find the Beth Orton version of Wild World? Her accent is awesome in the song!
Comment by gary — January 13, 2009 @ 8:47 am
Hi there! Having a little trouble with the downloading on your last 2 posts – SaveFile keeps giving me at HTML file rather than an MP3 file. Any suggestions? Love the blog, visit every day. You’ve got great taste!
Comment by Jeffrey Bilson — January 13, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
I just did the savefiles and tehy work fine for me. YOu must be right-clicking-save-as. Just click where it says “download.”
Comment by ekko — January 13, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
[...] 13, 2009 by Corey Blake The blog Berkeley Place has 10 Cat Stevens covers worth checking out, with some tongue-in-cheek appreciation for depressing [...]
Pingback by Berkeley Places likes Cat Stevens covers « The Troubadour Tribune — January 13, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
I am having the same problem with the htmls. It’s never happened before.
Comment by rob — January 13, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
Well, I just tested it AGAIN and it still works. Is this happening to you with all of them, or one in particular? No, wait. I tested it in Firefox and had no problem, but I tried it in Safari and I got the message you indicate. I’ve noticed that Safari has that kind of problem with a few other sites I’ve visted now and again. Savefile recently introduced an accellerated download speed feature. Maybe that is messing with Safari. Try Firefox.
Comment by ekko — January 14, 2009 @ 4:39 am