Thirty Days of Music, Day Fifteen

I cocked up.

So I am back from my trip abroad, went to Amsterdam for a few days. Had some fun with my mates, enjoyed the sights and customs of the Dutch. My plan had been to be back home nice and early on Monday so I could post the fifteenth part of the 30 Day Song Challenge, no need to pre-write and upload it in case something happened.

Oh, but something did happen. We got the ferry back home on Sunday evening and the sea was rough as hell. No sleep and half my stomach lining down the bog. Monday was a write off as I spent pretty much all of it in bed waiting for my inner ear to regain its balance and my blood sugars to sort themselves out.

But I’m back in the land of the living now and that means you’ll get two posts in one day, so swings and roundabouts. First, let’s talk covers!

Day 15: A song you liked that’s a cover by another artist

2020: “Step On”, Happy Mondays

It must suck when your most famous and most-played song is a cover. The Mondays have a great repertoire – “Hallelujah”, “Tart Tart”, “Kinky Afro” to name a few – and Shaun Ryder is frankly a very slept on lyricist. But what makes “Step On” special is that does not sound like a cover at all, you would never guess it came from South Africa’s John Kongos. ‘You’re twisting my melon, man’ is a little flourish that immediately makes it the Mondays’ song now, but there’s also Paul Ryder doing a lot of heavy lifting with both bass and keyboards, and Mark Day turning in a signature Madchester guitar riff. No doubt Bez was doing some vital work too.

2025: “Do You Remember the First Time?”, Sophie Ellis-Bextor

A while back for the radio, I did an hour of Britpop that was comprised entirely of covers. Some were songs covered by established Britpop artists (A chunk of them coming from the Help! album from 1995), others by artists covering Britpop (such as Elvis Costello doing a rendition of Sleeper’s “What Do I Do Now?”). Looking back on that show, I think the best song I played was this live rendition Sophie Ellis-Bextor did of this Pulp classic. In fact, there have been times since where I’ve played it on the radio solely for the fact that on that particular day I kind of prefer it to the original. Sacrilege perhaps, but Sophie does it justice and then some.

Right, back with you this evening for another round.