Cover Songs in Music

Cover songs have served as the means for artists to either dabble in songs that are uncharacteristic of their normal work, or to experiment with something brand new. It gives artists the opportunity to be creative with someone else’s work and develop a unique new sound if that is the desired intent. Songs don’t have to stick to one script and can be transformed in many ways. Therefore, I focused my research on the differences and ways a cover song can change in relation to its original version. In music, there are covers to virtually any song, have them be well-known, or more underground and unknown. These covers can change the original song through meaning, feeling and or the genre itself.
My research project was presented in the form of a podcast that contained three episodes, each diving into a part of my thesis. I interviewed individuals in each episode and created a list of questions I would ask each of them pertaining to the episode in which they were in. I used a variety of different songs in the series, each of them with an accompanying cover song, each of them varying greatly from their original version.
After conducting all my interviews, I concluded that covers songs open a door to a variety of different ways in which artists can transform the original song. Meaning, feelings, and genre’s themselves can all be used independently, or combined together to alter a song from its original form and in turn, make something new and unique

Hello, my name is Megan Lucia. My research project was based on discovering the relationship between cover songs and their original versions. I really enjoy listening to music, which is why I decided to get my BA in it. But it wasn’t until I conducted this research that I became really interested in how much a song can change through its cover version. People have been able to create almost new pieces just by using an original song and sometimes these new versions are better liked than the original. Sometimes I feel sad, sometimes happy, you know, regular emotions we feel daily, and I think these emotions have a big role in what we listen to. But what if a song that typically made you feel sad, now makes you feel happy? Or you listened to a song that was originally pop and now is considered country? In music, there are covers to almost every song, have that be a well-known song or something more underground and unknown. These covers can change the original song through meaning, feeling and or the genre itself. Throughout my research, I was attempting to find out ways in which the three categories I just mentioned can change the way a cover song is viewed/heard. Through the use of a podcast series, I introduced the guests that I had interviewed to a variety of different songs and their respective covers, with added questions that pertained to the episode in which they were in. As a constant, the individuals that were in the same episode got the same questions, to analyze if there were any big differences within their answers. The First episode of my podcast series dealt with how the meaning can change. The piece I included was “Respect” by Otis Redding, with its cover done by Aretha Franklin. I interviewed two individuals who had great conversations with me and helped explain how the meaning had changed between the two songs. The conclusion, was that Aretha Franklin’s version was a direct response to Redding’s original song in the way that she completely flipped the narrative, ultimately making her version a woman’s rights song. The meaning behind the song had thus changed.
In the second episode the category was feelings. Just like in the first, I gathered songs and their covers to play for the individuals I interviewed and asked specific questions after. The two songs that were up for discussion was a song by Outkast called “Hey Ya” with its cover by an artist named Jonathan Coulton, and a song by Sir Mix-A-Lot called “Baby Got Back” with its cover done by Obadiah Parker. The consensus here was that the style of singing and instrumentation were vastly different between original and cover which is what evoked a change of feeling between the two. It was even said in one of the interviews that the cover versions of these songs expressed what was trying to be said lyrically in the originals.
The third and final episode takes a look at how the genre of an original song changes with the creation of the cover. Artists should not be locked in a box and told to just perform the genres that are characteristic of their work. Which is why we get songs like the pop/rock Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” being transformed to a bluegrass styled song. I talked with my guests about ways that the entire genre of an original song can change through its cover version, and we concluded that an artist can take a song and manipulate it to bring together two worlds of genres. That’s the beauty of cover songs. They are left open to be interpreted in any way that an artist wants to and also leaves the ability to adapt music itself to their own preferred styles. Overall, I believe I was able to gather the information I needed to see how much of an impact cover songs have in music that give us listeners so much variety in what we listen to. Cover songs change so much about the original while still keeping them relatively the same. Thank you for watching!