“About A Girl” (Nirvana Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

And a happy Thumpin’ Thursday to you as well!  I hope this evening finds you healthy, warm, and enjoying the awesome weather we are supposed to receive for the next few days.  I can finally say “So Long and Farewell” to Winter, and to the hope of any more snow days from school.

Of course, I may be smitten for saying that.

Well, anyway today’s song is one that I actually heard a couple of days ago and said “Hmm…that song would be a good one to cover”, so here you are!  It’s another song by Nirvana and is called “About A Girl”.  It is from their debut 1989 album “Bleach” (wonder if it was clean…).

I did some reading about the history of this song and there’s a few cool stories about it.  First off, when presented to the band the then-drummer Chad Channing asked Kurt Cobain what the song was about, and Cobain replied “It’s about a girl”.  Cobain didn’t want it put on the album for fear of it being too pop sounding, and having it overwrite their perceived grunge image from their fanbase.  Eventually they decided to put it on the album, citing the producer’s image of it even being a single.

There was a girl that he wrote it about.  It was his then-girlfriend Tracy Marander.  She had asked him at one point why he hadn’t written a song about her, and that was among the inspirations that helped him write this song.  Funny thing is it took 10 years for her to find out that the song was about her, and she only found out by reading the biography of Nirvana called “Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana”.

The song is a rather light number and is perfect for our covering style.  I hope you enjoy it!  I’ll see you next week, and be sure to check back throughout the week for more covers from all of us!

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!

“Fake Plastic Trees” (Radiohead Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your thumpin’ thursday edition of the Laptop Sessions (been waiting 3 weeks to use that again). Today I bring you another Radiohead song from their album “The Bends”, and another song i’ve known how to play for quite some time.

The song is “Fake Plastic Trees”, and is one of the singles from the album. I love the dynamic change in this song, and the vocal changes throughout the song.

Naturally, like most Radiohead songs, I don’t know what it’s about either. Apparently, however, one site says it’s about Canary Wharf, a large shopping area in London.

This video goes down as a “I recorded it despite being sick” video. We can’t skip a day here at guitarbucketlist.com! Can’t use sickness as an excuse. Gotta keep the streak alive! I missed a note near the last verse, and the last line of the last verse my voice didn’t quite hit the falsetto I had been hitting in the previous verse lines. This is by no means my top vocal performance for sure. I’d have been better off recording this while my voice was 100%.

I’m hoping to hit 5k views by next Wednesday’s edition! I’m really racking up the views as of late. Hopefully I can start racking up the ratings and comments as well!

Until then, enjoy “Fake Plastic Trees”, another Radiohead hit!

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!

“Atlanta” (Stone Temple Pilots – Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Laptop Sessions. Since my first song from Stone Temple Pilots went over so well, I decided to do another one by them. There are a few songs on my list to do from them, and this was one of them.

The song is called “Atlanta” from their album No. 4. I learned to play this song 3 years ago and i’ve had a lot of time to practice it. This has been a favorite of all those I play it for.

You’ll notice a few weird things in this video, including a cameo by my wife, and my unscripted reaction to it.

Jim joins us Friday for another awesome addition to The Laptop Sessions.

Oh, and a side note – broke 2,000 views yesterday. Perhaps 3k is coming soon?

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!

“Fa Fa” (Guster Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

And now, to bring New Bands 2.0 to a close, I bring you…what else?  Another new band!  I hope you have enjoyed us exploring some more musical libraries and contributing them to the sessions.  We’re always thankful for more to cover as well, allowing us to approach our 366 day goal (leap year naturally – nice going Chris) more readily.

With that said, I can guarantee you’ll hear another song by this band before the year is out.

When I was a young student at the University of Connecticut, we were fortunate to have a really awesome, but somewhat unknown band perform named “Guster”.  My roommate Andy insisted they were really good and we were going to enjoy them a lot more than…who else played that night?  (I honestly don’t remember!).

I remember seeing two young guys with guitars, and a…percussion player.  Yes that’s right – he’s not a drummer, he plays various percussion entirely with his hands.  And they had a rocking sound that caused my wife to buy the album that today’s session comes off of called “Lost and Gone Forever”.

The song you’re about to hear was, unknown to me, their first single from the aforementioned album.  It is titled “Fa Fa”, and the title sounds like a song that belongs in the “They Might Be Giants” library.  However, it is a Guster song, and a great one at that.

During this session, I tried to keep a “rhythmic acoustic” strumming going, but missed a couple of chords and a bit of some lyrics due to my trying to keep that strum going.  Doesn’t change the fact that i’m quite proud of this session given the amount of times I had to practice it.

And today closes out “New Bands Week 2.0”.  I hope you enjoy it, and if you are new you stay a fan.  Come back every day for a new session from us!

Tomorrow Jim will bring us a Super Sunday edition.  Will it be a new band?  Tune in 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!