“Glass King” (America Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:
Welcome to Saturday’s edition of The Laptop Sessions, where I bring you another song by request. This song, while being an Itunes-only purchasable track, is easily one of the coolest songs by America.

The song is called “Glass King” and is written by Dewey Bunnell. It has a great bluesy guitar riff and sung in that classic Dewey style. It easily translates to acoustic since both Dewey & Gerry Beckley are on acoustic guitars when they play this song live. I became an instant fan of this song once I bought their album “Here & Now” on itunes.

Speaking of which, it is a great, great album. This song should really have been part of it, instead of as a bonus track. Don’t get me wrong – the songs that are part of the “official” album are all great in their own right. After all, it’s America – one of the greatest bands of all!

I hope you enjoy this song, as I am sure this will be added to my live song library for The Laptop Sessions Live Tour (remember, May 16 @ George’s II in Wallingford!)!

Be sure to come back tomorrow, where Jim will kick off another specialty week here at https://www.guitarbucketlist.com – #1 week! We’ll see you tomorrow for that!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Times Like These” (Foo Fighters Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your Thumpin’ Thursday edition of The Laptop Sessions. Today I bring you a song by request. It’s one of the Foo Fighters most well known songs, and most agree that the acoustic version of this song is better than the original, full-band version.

Well, the song is “Times Like These”, of which there is a terrific video of Dave Grohl playing the song on the acoustic, with piano and string accompaniment on Youtube.

I had just purchased new guitar strings and this is the 2nd video I recorded with them. I had recorded this song in the same session as my previous video, but the new strings make this song sound a heck of a lot better, so I did it again.

The song is off their great album “One By One”. I’ve always been a Foo Fighters fan since their original self-titled release.

I hope this translates well to the acoustic version, although you may notice that I do not do the “screaming” chorus, because my voice…well, it just isn’t suited for screaming.

I hope you enjoy today’s edition, and keep checking https://guitarbucketlist.com/ for more from FMP, and for pictures/video from our live performances!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“A Rush of Blood to the Head” (Coldplay Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening!  Welcome to your Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions, and to make up for the short (but thumpin’) song yesterday, I have a song that is more than double the length of yesterday’s song.  And it’s from a familiar band that I have enjoyed covering a lot.

Coldplay returns tonight with the title track of their album “A Rush of Blood to the Head”.  This album has a lot of songs similar to this – a soft, mellow acoustic style with interjections of drive guitars and distorted solos.  This is probably the longest song by them that doesn’t involve some of Chris Martin’s trademark falsetto (with exception of the opening, but that part isn’t all that difficult).

It was fun covering this song.  It is based on acoustic, so covering it was easy.  I nearly had it in one take but I played the Bb chord in the chorus too soon.  So on take #2, I was happy with it.  The timing of some of the verse lines and post-chorus lines are different than the studio recording, but this cover version works just fine with that.

I hope you enjoy today’s cover – be sure to come back tomorrow for a brand new cover song by Chris Moore himself, and then i’ll be back Sunday for another familiar band – heck, we’ve already seen the band this week, but it’ll be the first time i’m covering that band.  Who is it?  Be sure to come back all weekend to find out!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

Chords/Lyrics: “King of Comedy” by REM

All Verses: D, Dsus4, A, C, G, A, Asus4

Chorus: Gm, C, G

Bridge: G, slide down (x8)

Lyrics

Make your money with a suit and tie
Make your money with shrewd denial
Make your money expert advice,
If you can wing it
Make your money with a power ply
Make your money with a buyout bribe
Make it lie as long as you mean it

I’m not king of comedy,
Grease the pig, give a squeeze (squeeze me)

Make your money with exploitation
Make it holy illumination
Say a prayer at every station
Don’t forget to ask for mercy
Make your money with a pretty face
Make it easy with product placement
Make it charged with controversy
I’m straight, I’m queer, I’m bi

I’m not king of comedy,
I’m not your magazine,
I’m not your television

Make your money, make it rich
Make it young and make it quick
Make your money on the jukebox, baby,
It’s pick up sticks,
Make your enemies, make your moves
Make your critics fumble through
Make it smart and make it schmooze
Make it look easy

I’m not king of comedy,
I’m not your magazine,
I’m not your television,
I’m not your movie screen
I’m not commodity (all together now)
I’m not commodity
I’m not commodity