Favorite Bowie covers

[Barklessdog]

I really like "Life On Mars" by Vamps, Hyde does does a great job on the vocals, in my opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbXsHMzKR3I&feature=related

[uwe]

Easy: Mott the Hoople doing All the Young Dudes.

[Hornisse]

I'll go the opposite direction

I really love the cover Bowie did on Ziggy Stardust "It Ain't Easy" by the late great Ron Davies.  Three Dog Night also did a cover on their LP of the same name.

[Basvarken]

I like Five Horse Johnson's take on It Ain't Easy.

[Chris P.]

Has anyone seen the movie The Life Aquatic. It's like a nice comedy take on the life of Jacques Cousteau. A real nice movie. In the movie a deck hand plays Bowie songs on acoustic guitar in Portuguese. You can buy this on cd and it's really nice. Like easy listening Bowie in Portuguese, but nice. His name Seu Jorge.

Uwe: Do you have the German songs of Bowie like Heroes in German?

[gweimer]

I was going to say that I really can't think of many cover versions of Bowie, other than Nirvana's version of "Man Who Sold The World" and Wallflowers cover of "Heroes", which was pretty much a straight cover.

[Chris P.]

You mean all the Beatles' songs are Bowie covers?

[Dave W]

Maybe he meant to post that in the Beatles Rock Band thread.

[Chris P.]

I thought so too and I was just joking;)

[uwe]

Has anyone seen the movie The Life Aquatic. It's like a nice comedy take on the life of Jacques Cousteau. A real nice movie. In the movie a deck hand plays Bowie songs on acoustic guitar in Portuguese. You can buy this on cd and it's really nice. Like easy listening Bowie in Portuguese, but nice. His name Seu Jorge.

Uwe: Do you have the German songs of Bowie like Heroes in German?

I've got the German version of Heroes, that is about it.

[Chris P.]

I thought he had more songs in German, but I don't know for sure. I love Bowie in the Hunky Dory, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and the Pin Ups era. That are also the CDs I have, so I'm not the biggest fan on earth.

[lowend1]

Easy: Mott the Hoople doing All the Young Dudes.

Can that really be considered a cover? Bowie pretty much gave them the song - I think his version was released years after the Mott version.
However, I will submit the Angel version from "Live Without A Net" or maybe even the Bruce Dickinson offering.
The Wallflowers' version of "Heroes" is pretty cool too...

[gweimer]

Same thing for Iggy Pop's version of "China Girl", which preceeds Bowie's own version for the same reason.

[uwe]

Can that really be considered a cover? Bowie pretty much gave them the song - I think his version was released years after the Mott version.
However, I will submit the Angel version from "Live Without A Net" or maybe even the Bruce Dickinson offering.
The Wallflowers' version of "Heroes" is pretty cool too...

When I hear All the young Dudes, I hear Ziggy Stardust, it would have fitted right on there. I think it is - right down to Mott's arrangement (if it is their arrangement, it sounds Spiderish to me) and the guitar melody (not Mick Ralphs at all in my ears) - quintessential (Ziggy era) Bowie. I love Mott and I love Hunter (a great songwriter in his own style and an inimitable voice), but he couldn't write a song like that if his curls depended on it (nor would he have come up with a chorus where you have to hold the notes so long given his - charming - limits as a singer).

Lots of myth about how that song arrived with Mott. Hunter once said in an interview that when Bowie played it to them for the first time after a gig in the dressing room, he (Hunter) said it was crap (even though he thought it great at first listen), just to make ever so vain Bowie try so much harder to have that song played by Mott. Hunter claimed to be concerned Bowie might withdraw the offer if he had admitted his enthusiasm first hand. Mick Ronson and Trevor Boulder thought Bowie mad (a bit like Little Steven admonishing Springsteen for giving Because the Night to Patti Smith, she was higher up the charts with it than any E-Street Band song up to that time, they only made good years later with "Hungry Heart") for giving the song away and - true to form - Bowie seems to have regretted it later on.

[uwe]

It's unjust how Scotland's finest and the fearless purveyors of tartan chic in the rock world (long before that screaming banshee Axl Rose!) have been left unmentioned so far (here without their lead singer Les McEown, who had by then been unceremoniously dismissed from the Rollers):




The above version can unfortunately not be embedded, but here's a blurry embeddable excerpt of a long pants version:







And before everybody smirks: If you ignore slightly chubby (the good life on the road ...) Herr Faulkner's shaved legs for a while (some of you might find that hard to do, I know) and listen to this slo mo version of Rebel Rebel (kind of as if Bowie had incuded it on the cool and collected Young Americans rather than the more manic Diamond Dogs) it does grow on you after a while. Interesting bass playing from Woody (what kind of bass is that?   ) and Eric Faulkner's fluid and Hendrixy lead playing sounds more SRV than BCR to me! It lends credibility to an interview Faulkner once gave to Melody Maker claiming that he "had already been through my heavy metal phase with five minute guitar solos and all" prior to joining the Rollers.

Someone finally speak up: Do we have a witness amongst us who saw them live in the seventies? I would have if I would have had the chance. While I generally preferred Sweet, my ears told me even then that as a band BCR were less heavy-handed.

Uwe