by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra. This really shouldn't work on so many levels but what you get is just a magical and moving performance. Go check it out!

http://open.spotify.com/track/6iAYmK5QM2n6cYrgSCQ3Tz

Originally posted on a thread I ran about a presumed female aversion to matters Steely D. Evidence to the contrary emerged and this was produced by Ducoo1 and Spodify in evidence.

Frankly, knocks spots off the original if you ask me

...with Tim Buckley's 'Song To The Siren' made it magisterial and epic and beautiful; his own version only ever sounded po-faced and self-important. One or two notes in the melody may have been tweaked, and a certain tension/harmony added between melody and backing, so it was in essence the same song but in spirit a massively better one. (Their version of Roy Harper's 'Another Day', while also lovely, wasn't so different in emotional impact to its original source - IMHO...)

doing "I Don't Like Mondays" is marvellous.

but where The Smiths' version of "Never Had No One Ever" sounds to these ears like a wafty fart of meandering self pity, Billy Bragg's cover, on The Smiths Is Dead, turns it into a sleazy, wailing stomp of pent-up sexual frustration, and suddenly the song comes alive and makes perfect sense.

Hear it here: http://tinysong.com/3k72

This almost - almost - succeeds in making this song seem that it means, or is actually about, anything:

but would it not be fairer to say that the work of a really good interpreter can transcend an average sonwriters effort, or sometimes a good songwriters average effort. Here's a couple of examples of average songs re-interpreted to magnificence:
If I had a rocket launcher, by Bruce Cockburn is always cited as one of his better songs, whereas his version is a tad lacklustre, requiring Ron Kavana to nurture it's authors understated rage.
And Sheena Easton's Modern Girl is transformed from good pop to a great song by Camera Obscura.
BTW, talking of the job Susannah & the Magic Orchestra do with Love will tear us apart, is this again an example where the original is the worst, beyond it's mere nostalgic "you had to be there" schtick, version. Jeepers, I (riskily dare to suggest) I even prefer the Paul Young version......

but this cover version is somehow appropriate

I'd say Aztec Camera did a remarkable job of making Van Halen sound wistful, not a word you'd usually associate with them. I'm not sure it's a great song, but it's a great cover.

Agree with the observation above that often it's the skill of the interpreter that can provide the transformative alchemy rather than the strength of the source material.

"Mama, you've been on my mind" by Rod Stewart is a very special version of an otherwise ordinary Zimalong.

Frank Sinatra took the mundane and made it magical. "Fools Rush in" in another's hands may not have been the standard it's become.

He's terminally out of fashion now, but am I alone in retaining affection for Paul Young's version of Wherever I lay My Hat (That's My Home)? Marvin Gaye's version, if you don't know it, is upbeat, up-tempo and cocksure; Paul Young slowed the song down drastically (radically, in fact) and turned it into a wistful expression of regret and warning. He sings it bloody well too.

He also had a creditable stab at a not-very-well-known Tom Waits song (Soldier's Things)on his next album.