On her Pop Candy blog, Whitney Matheson recently listed 20 of her favorite cover songs. It brought to mind the weekend my girlfriend and I swilled fine shiraz from a box and tried to figure out what makes a great cover song. We didn’t reach a definitive conclusion, but we did agree that the song can’t be derivative of the original — that it has to be “claimed,” as it were, by the new artist. Something like that.
While I don’t agree with all of Matheson’s favorites, I do like her number one choice, “Dear Prudence” by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Here’s the video:
By the way, John Lennon’s original Prudence was Prudence Farrow, Mia Farrow‘s sister. She was on religious retreat in India and wouldn’t otherwise engage with the Beatles when they dropped by.
