Best Metal Cover Songs of All Time
Honourable Mentions of the Foreshadowing Kind, Part 1
To make life—and metal—more interesting, I’ve added two ‘Honourable Mentions’ catagories: one of the foreshadowing kind—discussed here—and on of the Metallica kind. The second was necessary because Metallica played so many covers that they made several EPs and a whole album (“Garage, Inc.”) of them. We’ll get to those after this.
What is a honourable mention of the foreshadowing kind?
Foreshadowing is a writing technique whose function is to make a story or a novel more plausible. A famous example is ‘Checkov’s gun’, where a writer describes a gun hanging on the wall1. This foreshadows the part where the gun will be used. Every story or novel worth its salt tries to foreshadow the main event, so that when it happens, it feels ‘natural’—for your value of ‘natural’—to the reader.
If the main event happens without any foreshadowing, then it’s called a ‘deus ex machina2’—a god from the machine—that is, an extremely improbable (often even impossible) twist that ties everything together through an act of god. While this was a common plot device from ancient times (the old Greeks probably invented it) up until the 18th Century (Shakespeare used it a couple of times), it is now considered bad writing, simply not done.
In general each reader knows that they are reading fiction, but are willing to ‘suspend their disbelief’ in order to enjoy it. Foreshadowing powers the suspension of disbelief, a deus ex machina destroys it.
What does this have to do with metal?
Nothing. I’m using this device for this ‘Best Metal Covers of All Time’ series of blog posts. By foreshadowing what is not there, but could have been, I’m hinting at what will be in the Top 15, so that knowledgeable metal fans will have a good idea what will come, and not be utterly surprised.
Isn’t that—no surprises—boring?
There are only 6 foreshadowing hints of the Top 15, so 9 entries may—or may not, for the connoisseur with good taste—be a surprise.
Are you mixing metal and fiction because you’re an evil science fiction writer?
Now you’re committing another sin, that of spoiling exactly what will happen. There should have been a [SPOILER WARNING] before your question.
Wait what? Foreshadowing is good and spoiling is bad?
Exactly. Readers need to work for it, not being served it on a silver platter.
My head hurts. Please get back to metal.
Here we go:
Knocking on Heaven’s Door—Guns N’ Roses (original = Bob Dylan)
Despite its many millions of fans, Guns N’ Roses don’t quite work for me. A matter of taste, and as such I think this cover works better than, say, their power ballad “November Rain”. So shoot me.
Actually, if their originals hadn’t been so immensely successful, they might have had a Manfred Mann’s Earth Band type of career (see below). Guns N’ Roses’s version adds just enough electric power and vocalising pathos3 to Bob Dylan’s acoustic original without devolving into bathos and outstaying its welcome4. Good stuff.
The Sound of Silence—Nevermore (original = Simon and Garfunkel)
It’s a miracle that nobody complained about my ditching of Disturbed’s cover version5, but this is—IMHO—how it should be done. Nevermore takes the original and makes it their own, turning it into a blistering metal song. It is in fact so much Nevermore that you only recognise the original during the intro and the chorus. A sick version for all the right reasons.
The only reason it’s not in the Top 15 is . . . [SPOILER ALERT]
Davy’s on the Road Again—Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (original = John Simon and Robbie Robertson)
If you’d look only at their most successful singles, you’d think Manfred Mann’s Earth Band is a cover band. “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Davy’s on the Road Again”, “Spirit(s) in the Night”, “Blinded by the Light”, “For You”, and “The Mighty Quinn”—all are covers6. However, they’ve made quite a few original albums that, unfortunately, were never as successful as their cover singles.
Inadvertently or not, they could be seen as one of the most successful cover bands of all time7. Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan are still thankful for the extra royalties, even though they don’t really need them8.
Having said that, “Davey’s on the Road Again” is indeed easily a step up from the original on John Simon’s Album. which, in comparison, plods along without much conviction. The cover is so much more lively and heartfelt, better articulated and altogether—dare I say—smoother and flashier9.
A worthy honourable mention.
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Author’s note: with nineteen more honourable mentions upcoming before the Top 15, I need to squeeze a few together like I did in the previous post and above, because I want to wrap this up before New Year’s Eve, although I might decide to do the Top 15 one by one.
Many thanks for reading and stay tuned!
The Wikipedia article calls it a ‘narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary and irrelevant elements should be removed’. This may work well with crime stories, but becomes quite limiting in literary and speculative fiction, as life itself is full of elements that don’t make sense. In other words, ensuring that every single element in a story must make sense will deliver a story that feels highly artificial, and therefore implausible (which is exactly the opposite of the desired effect);
Where actors playing god would be brought on stage using a machine (a crane, a trapdoor and suchlike);
The background choirs work wonders;
Even if Axl Rose is pushing the boundaries. When his voice becomes to whiny—as it does in their original songs—I immediately switch to Slayer;
Note: need more followers. Unfortunately, I’m better at producing content than marketing it;
And that’s not even all of them;
If we ignore the first three Deep Purple (Mark I) albums (then again, Deep Purple’s success happened after these) and Led Zeppelin I;
A typical music industry phenomenon; that is, the utmost majority of its royalties go to a select number of top-grossing bands or artists;
Although the live version coud be immensely improved by cutting the keyboard solo in the middle;