Cover Versions (Beatles Songs by Other Artists)

It has often been said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. And while the Beatles were instrumental in spawning a number of cool cultural trends–from hairstyle (long–including the famed “Beatles’ haircut”) to eye wear (though “granny glasses” are often attributed to Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, John single-handedly took it from fad to fashion) to leg wear (bell-bottoms ala Go-Go dancer Toni Basil)–perhaps the greatest flattery the Beatles have received is other performers recording cover versions of their extraordinary music. While their “Pied-piper-like” influence did effectively result in a generational rift via the “counterculture” youth movement of the 60s–70s, their music ultimately served to bridge the generations as nothing had before or since. (Even 40s—50s crooner Frank Sinatra recognized the Beatles’ genius, recording “Something” and deeming it a masterpiece.)   

Before the close of the 1960s, more than a thousand cover versions of Lennon-McCartney songs had been recorded by various individual singers, bands, orchestras, and choirs. McCartney’s “Yesterday” alone (ranked 13th on Rolling Stone’s 2004 list “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”) had been recorded by 119 performers—from Joan Baez to Ray Charles to Andy Williams—with that number more than fifteen fold today. (According to Guinness World Records, by January of 1986, a phenomenal 1600 cover versions of “Yesterday” had been recorded.) Like “Yesterday,” by 1968 “Michelle” had been covered at least 80 times, “A Hard Day’s Night” 57 times (including versions by guitar great Chet Atkins, “Queen of Jazz” Ella Fitzgerald, and actor/comedian/singer Peter Sellers), “Can’t Buy Me Love” 52 times, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” 46 times (in 1964, Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops recorded an instrumental version that reached #55 in the American charts and cartoon characters Alvin and the Chipmunks covered it for their album, The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits). Likewise, “All My Loving” was covered 43 times, “And I Love Her” 42 times (and is today one of the most popular foreign translation, R&B, Crooner, Pop, and Grunge choices), “She Loves You” 39 times, “Help!” 32 times, and “Please Please Me” 28 times.   

While there is little doubt that covering Beatles songs during the 60s and 70s was at least in part motivated by the instant “hip” status it gave entertainers–and that Beatles songs were guaranteed “money-in-the-bank” no matter who sang them (proven by those given to Peter and Gordon, Cilla Black, and Billy J. Kramer)–the simple fact that their songs continue to resonate with an ever-wider audience is indicative of their timeless and forward-thinking qualities; in a word, their inherent genius. Thus, even as successive generations of musicians turn out chart-topping songs of their own, the undeniable superiority of Beatles’ material—and the influence the Beatles continue to have on musicians decades later—remains evident as even established performers pay homage to the Beatles, demonstrated by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple (who covered “Across the Universe” in 1998), eight-time Grammy Award-nominated American singer-songwriter Tori Amos (who recorded “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” “Let It Be,” “She’s Leaving Home,” “Something,” “With a Little Help From My Friends,” and “Here, There and Everywhere” in 2001), American Punk-Rock band Allister (who covered “I Saw Her Standing There” in 2006), American and Danish singer-songwriters AM and Tina Dico (who covered “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as a duet in 2008), and English Rock band Beady Eye (who covered “Across The Universe in 2011)—with covers used in movie sound tracks almost too numerous to list. From Aerosmith to Cyndi Lauper to Zwan—tribute cover versions of the Beatles’ music have become as prominent as the Beatles’ music itself. And since the Beatles have now taken their rightful place as among the most important composers in history, that reality is likely to continue.