Covers Wish List #1

I'm a big fan of the shuffle feature. Sometimes there'll be a specific album I want to listen to and in those cases I usually end up listening to the songs in order. But most of the time I'll listen to music on shuffle. Whether it's a certain artist I'm listening to or one of my many playlists. I like the randomness of it. Of course, as anyone who listens to their music on shuffle knows, it can make for some pretty interesting transitions. Downright strange ones at times. Especially if you're like me and have some playlists that have a little bit of everything on them. It is said shuffle feature that inspired this post, which is going to be the first of who knows how many. I see this being an ongoing thing.

See, the other day I was doing something on my computer and listening to music and it went from Carrie Underwood to Janet Jackson. As I was listening to the Janet Jackson song, it occurred to me that Carrie Underwood could probably do an interesting cover of it if she wanted to. That got me thinking about covers in general and remembering some of the covers I've seen done in concert. And country artists seem to love doing covers. Not all of them, but many. Country acts will cover all sorts of different kinds of songs, though the most popular seem to be older country songs, classic rock anthems and relatively recent pop hits. I've seen some great ones over the years...and a few that maybe should've never been attempted. More good ones than not. I don't think I'm alone in saying that there's certain songs that I'd love see certain artists cover. 

In fact, as it turns out, there's a lot of songs I want to see covered. I had no idea how many until I started writing them down as I thought of them and quickly ended up with a list of over 50 songs. Wow. I was overdue to write a new post and didn't feel like reviewing anything, so I decided to start this series. A little different, but it should be fun. I'll do 10 songs at a time. There'll be songs that won't be too unexpected, others that you might not recognize and some that may leave you wondering if I've suffered a blow to the head recently. I was trying to think a little outside the box here. As far as I know, none of these artists have ever done any of these songs. 

Since the shuffle feature is what inspired this, I've decided to let that determine what songs I include and in what order. Yes, I actually made a playlist of all these songs. Because, why not? If there's any songs that you would like to see covered by a country artist, let me know and I'll include it in a future post. Giving you credit, in whatever way you want me to. First name, twitter handle, what have you. And if any of the artists mentioned here happen to stumble across this post, they can take the suggestion as a challenge and maybe give said song a shot. Stranger things have happened, after all.

Starting off with the song that got me thinking about all of this...

Carrie Underwood: "Black Cat" by Janet Jackson. I have to say I'm curious to see how many of you know this song. It's not an obscure song by any means. In fact, it went all the way to #1 when it was released as a single. In 1990. This song was on her Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 album, released in 1989. An album I used to listen to all the time. "Black Cat" was one of my favorite songs on the album and I really think Carrie would do a great job with it. 

Dierks Bentley: "You Found Me" by The Fray. I'm going to be honest and admit that I was kind of surprised when Dierks first came to mind when listening to this song. But the more I think about it, the more I want to hear him do it. I'm curious as to what he and his band or whomever would do with it.

Brett Eldredge: "What'll I Do", written by Irving Berlin in 1923. This is a lovely song that's been recorded by several artists over the years including; Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney's aunt), Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. Bea Arthur sang it on an episode of The Golden Girls, which is actually where I heard it for the first time. So why do I want Brett to do this? Well, Brett sang a little bit of "Fly Me to the Moon" during his Stageit show a couple of weeks ago and did a great job with it. And then the other day I was checking out his YouTube channel and came across this gem of a cover right here. Brett singing Frank Sinatra makes me very, very happy. He has a fantastic voice for that style of music and, really, I'd be happy to hear him cover just about any Sinatra song or any song from that time to be honest. But especially this one. 

Jake Owen: "Safe & Sound" by Matthew West, who is one of my favorite Christian artists. This is such a beautiful song that he wrote for his daughter. There's a lot of country artists who would do a great job with this. I picked Jake Owen mainly because he's still such a new father and talks about his daughter so much. I think he would really connect with the sentiment of the song.

Kellie Pickler: "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry. I first heard this song at the Grand Ole Opry, sung by the fabulous Jeannie Seely. To say that this is quite a song would be an understatement. What we have for most of the song is a conversation taking place at the dinner table where the narrator's mother mentioned that "Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge". To which the father replies with, "'Well, Billie Joe never had a lick o'sense, pass the biscuits, please'". For the sake of length, I'm going to leave it at that and hope it inspires those of you who haven't heard the song to go look it up. Because the story gets a lot more interesting. You really need to listen to the words on this one. I think Kellie would knock this one out of the park.

Kristen Kelly: "Rough Lover" by Aretha Franklin. Speaking of knocking songs out of the park, it's very appropriate that this song would come on next. That's exactly what I think Kristen Kelly would do with it. 

Miranda Lambert: "Just a Girl" by No Doubt. When I was thinking of songs that I'd like Miranda to cover, this one popped into my mind instantly. If you haven't heard it, this song is very much tongue in cheek. It's a sarcastic response to how some women are viewed by certain types of men. Miranda has the attitude to pull it off and it'd be fun to watch her give it a shot.

Blake Shelton: "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley. Confession: sometimes the shuffle feature kind of weirds me out. Like having a song I'd like to hear Blake cover come on right after a song I'd like for his wife to do. Yeah. That was strange. The thought of Blake doing this song intrigues me. My instinct is that it would really good. Perhaps surprisingly so.

Keith Urban: "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis. This one might seem a little random, but I'd love to see what Keith would do with a lyric like this. This more than likely wouldn't be a straight cover as I'd hoped it wouldn't be. And by straight cover, I mean one that's basically identical to the original. I see him really stripping it down and blowing everyone away with his delivery. I really want to hear him do this. 

Luke Bryan: "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" made famous by The Temptations, but originally recorded by a group called The Undisputed Truth. Sometimes I feel like Luke is a little underrated as a vocalist. Not by any of his fans, but in terms of the general country audience. His voice is better than he gets credits for and I think that this song would showcase it very nicely. Luke does a lot of covers, many of them of songs you'd never expect him to cover, but has he ever done Motown? I'd love to see him try his hand at it, if he hasn't. If not this specific song, one of the other songs of the style. I really think he could more than do it justice. 

So there we have it. The first 10 songs I'd love to see covered by country artists. Some more than others. Namely Brett Eldredge and Keith Urban and the songs I picked for each of them. Those are definitely the ones I want to hear the most. Remember to tell me what songs you'd like to see covered and stay tuned for the next installment. Which may end up featuring some of the same artists. You never know.

Thanks for reading!