Blog
Cover Songs – make them interesting
Written by Andy Patterson
When we began Abubilla Music, back in 2008 or so, we started off by recording cover songs – and trying to replicate them on disk – the main reason being to teach Jimmy the rudiments of Pro Tools and how it all worked. We then took a very conscious decision not to do any more cover songs. Given that we hadn’t written them, they were firmly worked into the minds of the listener, and we would find it hard to break through generally.
We did however work ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’ in to the King Henry’s Album, on the justification that it was so different to the original, it brought something new to it:
I’ve also been a long admirer of taking songs you are really familiar with, and then making them your own – and have tried it on a few occasions myself – with the Roy Orbison (one of, if not the best voice ever) classic ‘I Drove All Night’ and Huey Lewis and the News’ 80s hit ‘Power of Love’:
So, on our recent Spanish Jam, I decided to add to this with Don Henley’s Boys of Summer – a classic tune. The inspiration came from The Show of Hands version – available to listen to on their SoundCloud here:
My version isn’t a hundred miles away, so I can’t claim full credit for it, but I like it. My version will be available as a video on the Abubilla site and Youtube Channel soon.
Personalise
Now, with hindsight, in the third verse I should have sung ‘Abubila sticker in a cadillac’, but I’ll save that for the live version – but try to make the song specific to your surroundings.. So if the song names a location, then change the location to where you are – or change any names in your song to the names of people you know or who are in the media..