Tag Archives: cover song

“Only Happy When it Rains” (Garbage Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Jeff Copperthite:

You know me – i’m not one to decline a challenge.  When I read Jim’s Thursday post that he was covering a female artist, and echoed by Chris, who followed up Jim’s post with an extremely….scary cover (how appropriate – I don’t think i’ve been put on a holiday yet).

Well, here you go.  Jeff’s covering a band with a female lead singer.

And yes, I admit i’m not as attractive as Shirley Manson.

But nonetheless, I present a song from her band Garbage.  The song is “Only Happy When It Rains”, which was a popular song from their debut self-titled album.  I always did enjoy the songs from this band, and I also enjoyed the fact that Butch Vig was their drummer (and the producer of the quintessential alternative rock album Nevermind by Nirvana).  They had catchy riffs, good vocals, and Shirley is quite impressive in the singing department.

I didn’t have to raise my normal voice pitch all that much, given Shirley’s tendency to sing in the low range.  Because of this, I didn’t need to use falsetto.  I think I did a good job of this.  I threw a capo on the guitar to make playing it a lot easier, since the singing part was going to be somewhat challenging.

This goes to show – we aren’t afraid of the female-lead bands!  Perhaps I’ll throw in a Fleetwood Mac song in the near future…

The next day, Jim entertained us with his Super Sunday edition. I was back to check it out, and i’m sure you were too!

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 origianal 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!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

More Laptop Sessions covers

“Run Rudolph Run” by Jim Fusco – FREE mp3 Download! – Day 12 of 14

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Hello and welcome to Day 12 of Jim Fusco’s 14 Days of Rock’n’Roll Christmas 2015!  Only a couple songs left, but I’ve saved some good ones for last!

Tonight is my cover of Chuck Berry’s Christmas song, ‘Run Rudolph Run”.  What a guitar player Berry is.  The opening and solo to this song are both very difficult.  They’re not necessarily difficult scales to play, but he plays them so smoothly and with those harmonies.  I guess he was talking about himself when he said, “He could play the guitar just like ringin’ a bell.”

This song is also in a higher register (for singing) than it would appear.  I’m used to singing this live and really letting loose, but in a studio setting, it was a bit harder to get the energy needed without messing up the recording levels.  So, I opted to stand a bit further away from the microphone and sang with more passion, even though the notes might not be 100% right all the time.  It didn’t sound right singing it too “sweetly’.

The penultimate release in my Christmas series is next.  Don’t forget to download each song you can listen every year!

Related posts

“Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me)” by Jim Fusco – FREE mp3 Download! – Day 11 of 14

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Really getting down to the wire now, as I bring you Day 11 of 14 here at Jim Fusco’s 14 Days of Rock’n’Roll Christmas!  I hope you’ve been liking all of this free music so far.  Let’s keep it rolling tonight with a great little tune that Elvis Presley sang all the way back in 1957.  “Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me)” is one of my favorites because of the good beat and that awesome bass line.  That line took me a LONG time to master and my fingers were so sore I couldn’t play the bass again for a couple of days!  But now I think I can play it in my sleep.

The backing vocals were a little trickier than I thought they’d be.  There’s a couple of parts that I didn’t realize were in there, but you listen to a song a lot differently when you’re trying to recreate it.  I was able to use some of my nice guitars and amps for these songs to give the proper sound and I think they really sound good.

So, add this song to your growing collection and enjoy the final three days of the series!

Related posts

“On Christmas Day” by Jim Fusco – FREE mp3 Download! – Day 10 of 14

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to Day 10 of Jim Fusco’s 14 Days of Rock’n’Roll Christmas!  I can finally breathe a sigh of relief, as I’ve officially finished the album.  And only four days ahead of time!  I had to re-record some parts and mix down the last couple of songs, but I’m finally done.  Now, I can give my friends and family high quality versions on CD so they can import into their iTunes libraries.

Tonight’s song is another you probably haven’t heard of (don’t worry- this is the last one!), but it’s a really great song.  It’s called “On Christmas Day” and is written by Brian Wilson.  he recorded it and included it as a bonus track on his Christmas album from the mid-2000’s.  I love the video of the band making this song- it’s so cool seeing it come together in the studio.

An interesting thing to me is that this song really was done back in the 70’s and was called “Bells of Paris”.  Of course, the tune was slightly different, but it’s really the same song.  I’d be interested to find out what came first- Brian’s Christmas lyrics or the ones about Paris.  I know the Beach Boys had a failed Christmas album in the mid-70s and there’s actually a version called “Bells of Christmas” that replaces the lyrics with holiday-themed ones.  But, the version Brian re-tooled that eventually became “On Christmas Day” is by far my favorite and that’s why I had to make my own version!

I hope you like the song as much as I do.  Day 11 (a song you’ve heard of!) is next as we roll on!

Related posts