Cover Me...Volume 4

A good cover song should spotlight the song in a different light.  A cover song is weakest when, say a band does the cover in the same vein as a predecessor.  Take "I Fought the Law"  - probably one of the most covered songs  in rock & roll.   Originally written by Sonny Curtis in 1959, it gained notoriety when the Bobby Fuller Trio covered it in 1966.  Thirteen years later, the song gained a second life when the Clash took it on and transformed it from a ballad of love lost, to an anti-establishment anthem.  In 2004, Green Day, the main stream punk, band decided to cover it, but did no justice to the song, playing it exactly like the Clash did in '79.  As stated in the movie Multiplicity,

"You know how when you make a copy of a copy, its not
  as sharp as... well... the original."

That is what happend to Green Day's version.

The Clash

 Green Day

Or maybe a country version suits you better: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

So for today's cover song, I chose Lionel Richie's "Hello" off his mulch-platinum album, Can't Slow Down.  The song is probably most famous for the video, with Richie stalking a blind girl, who reciprocates her love for him by creating a clay bust of his head. The song is sappy with it's iconic line "hello, is it me you're looking for..." and a smooth jazz guitar solo.

The cover is by punk rock super-group, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  The Gimmes are nothing more than a cover band who wear quirky, matching outfits like Hawaiian shirts, or Western wear. or Nehru suits with a fez. They give a completely original take on the song until the end (which nearly ruins the song) when they close with the infamous Three Stooges "Hello."