“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!

“Everybody Out of the Water” (Wallflowers Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening, and welcome to The Laptop Sessions for Monday, July 7th. Today’s song is dedicated to the youtube user who sent me a message simply asking “Why haven’t you done a Wallflowers song lately?”. Well, I aim to please, so here you go!

Today’s song is from The Wallflowers, from their album “Red Letter Days” (my personal favorite of thiers). We have covered songs from this album before, but given that each song is awesome, there’s no reason we can’t cover another! And the song is “Everybody Out of the Water”, which is unlike any other song on the album. It’s the 4th track, and the song before it is the soft piano medley “Closer to You”. That song and this song are the two extremes on the album. This is meant to be an angry song, and even though this song sounds best with the electric distorted guitar, I think the acoustic cover that I present to you is just as effective.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Jim’s next awesome song. I hope you enjoyed today’s session and continue to enjoy the sessions overall!

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!

“Out of Our Heads” (Sheryl Crow Cover)

For Sheryl Crow Chords and Lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Jeff Copperthite:

Assistant Editor/site curator note: This post was originally from February 19, 2009.  The post doesn’t mention too many “historically inaccurate” information, but still always good to see where things were.  Enjoy this latest blast from the past!

Welcome to Thumpin’ Thursday for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Here’s a couple of updates for you.  My health is much better now after a shaky four days from Wednesday to Sunday last week.  The vacation is helping tremendously.  Also, i’ve hit 90K views, and I should hit the 6 digit mark in the near near future!

Tonight I have a brand new cover song for you.  It’s a song that I have yet to see anybody cover, or post the chords too.  The song is by Sheryl Crow, and it’s a single off her album “Detours”.  The song “Out of Our Heads” shares the title of a Rolling Stones’ album.  However, the song is drastically different.  It’s also very catchy, and unfortunately it’s hard to capture the catchiness in an acoustic cover.

The hardest part for me is the fact I had to figure this song out on my own.  I’ve never been very good at transcribing guitar chords by ear.  I used to make MIDI files for a couple of Final Fantasy games in my teenage years, and I got good at picking out individual instruments and tracking those for the MIDI.  I also could figure out bass riffs, but i’d use those bass riffs to figure out guitar parts, which worked for a fair amount of the time.

So what you’re watching is my transcription of the song.  I figured out it was a capo’d song from the music video that Sheryl Crow made.  However, the sound I picked up was from a first fretted capo, not a sixth like in the video.  Sure, it worked on sixth when I was messing around with it, but it sounded more accurate on 1st.

Here are the chords I transcribed, relative to 1st fret capo.

Verse: Am, F, C, G

Chorus: Am, C, F, C, G

If you have suggestions or changes, please let me know about them.  I hope, regardless, you enjoy tonight’s video!

“Immortality” (Pearl Jam Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Monday is always a tricky day for all that begin their workweek on that day of the week.  Weird things tend to happen on that day – I think it’s because people have just their weekends and are more prone to find unkind things weird and abnormal.

I’m certainly in the latter group.

On a morning where someone decided “Egg & Cheese” was the same as “Sausage Egg & Cheese”, I decided (well, against my will) to have a weird Monday.  And it’s just getting more abnormal.

Youtube is having maintenance tonight – on my night – again – for the umpteenth time.

It’s becoming weird when that doesn’t happen to me.

Ok well, the video you will soon get to enjoy is a Pearl Jam song called “Immortality” from their album “Vitalogy”.  This marks the 4th song I have covered from this album, as I have always enjoyed its awesome array of songs.  I think this album is one of their finer releases, and has many more acoustic cover worthy songs on it.  I also have a knack for something songs in a minor key.

Whenever you get to watch this video, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you come back for an extra special Thumpin’ Thursday ®.  Of course, I know you’ll be coming back to enjoy Jim & Chris’ next offerings as well.

Until then… (quick, find the last time I closed a blog post with those words!)

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!