“Polly” (Nirvana Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and welcome to another awesome edition of The Laptop Sessions!  Tuesday is always a tricky day for me since I usually have school, then a couple of hours to practice and spend time with my wife, then my weekly Dynamis run.  We had a good run tonight, but then I get to post my performance – and tonight it’s a new band!

The band I am featuring tonight is Nirvana, one of the most well-known alternative rock acts of all time.  The song I am playing is from their awesome 1991 album “Nevermind”, and it is “Polly”.  It’s a sweet, acoustic number that is kind of out of place on the album.  All the songs have a grunge feel to them (perhaps not the last track, but the rest of them sure do), and this song breaks up the flow of the album, but in a good way.  It makes all the songs not sound the same, and I think the hooking tracks were all singles, which is why the album sold so well in the first place.

The band was fronted by Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in the mid-90’s much to the dismay of many Nirvana fans.  But that’s a topic you can read about nearly anywhere.

As far as me, I am nearing another viewcount milestone, and can’t wait to reach the 1/20 of a million mark (that’s for my students who say “I hate fractions”).  I’ll be sure to let you know when I cross that threshold.

It’s also my birthday tomorrow – another year added on to my old fart status.

Enjoy tonight’s session, and report back tomorrow for another awesome original tune by Jim Fusco!

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!

“Zombie” (Cranberries Cover

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good (late) evening to you!  It’s Jeff tonight posting (a bit late) with another…yes, another!…brand new band to the Sessions.  Lately all 3 of us have been on an unofficial New Bands 3.0 binge.

Tonight’s new band is The Cranberries, an Irish band (with another female lead singer – score another one for the Jeffster) and a song from their debut album (deep breath) “Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?”  That is the last time I write that album title by the way.

This album produced quite a few successful singles including the song covered tonight.  The song is “Zombie”, which as far as song difficulty goes this is probably the easiest of all the songs I’ve covered to play.  The challenge was singing like Dolores O’Riordan who has multiple octave range.  I decided to sing the verses in key, but drop an octave to sing the chorus parts.  It allowed me to get a little more emotional with the song as well.

I would’ve posted earlier but our Sunday Nyzul Isle runs failed miserably – not because we didn’t succeed, but in 4 boss fights we won all 4, but were awarded absolutely nothing in drops.  Oh well, there’s always next week.

I hope you enjoy today’s cover, and come back tomorrow for another great acoustic cover song by Jim!

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!

“Stage Fright” (The Band Cover)

By Chris Moore:

I’m proud to present the first in a week-long event here at https://guitarbucketlist.com entitled “Title Tracks Week”!! Each day this week, we’ll unveil a new session devoted to a song whose title is the same as the album it was on. For instance, I chose a song from the Band’s 1970 album Stage Fright called — well, you may have guessed it already — “Stage Fright.”

This is an interesting song to me, as I’ve heard and read rumors over the years that this song was written by the Band’s Robbie Robertson in reference to Bob Dylan. If anyone would know, it would be someone like Robertson, who has played many shows with Dylan over the years, most often as his lead guitarist. (He’s particularly well-known for being the electric guitarist that powered Dylan’s sound in the mid-60s, when he first “went electric.”)

For anyone who’s seen Dylan play on stage, it does make sense that he might suffer from a form of stage fright…

So, without further ado, here’s the first of seven title tracks this week — even Original Wednesday this week will be a title track. I hope you’ll check back tomorrow for Jeff’s installment!

See you next session!



“Love Song For No One” (John Mayer Cover)

By Chris Moore:

I have found that there are very, very few artists that I love who started playing music any later than the early t0 mid- 1990s. John Mayer has been an exception, at least up until his whole “I’m into blues/I’m very serious/I have long hair” phase. I fell in love with Room For Squares, found Inside Wants Out charming, and couldn’t stop listening to Heavier Things. Unfortunately, I found Continuum to be unimpressive on the whole. And don’t even get me started on Try!

So, for this session, I went back in time to “Love Song For No One,” hoping to conjure up a time when I loved Mayer and his work. I think his first album is often dismissed, as though every song were “Your Body is a Wonderland” — which I’m man enough to admit I really enjoy…

Without further ado, here’s my take on “Love Song For No One,” a version that took me many takes before I was happy enough to release it. I’m still not entirely happy with it, but my voice was scratchy and I did my best. Besides, you know what they say — a session a day… keeps Chris, Jim, and Jeff going crazy? 🙂

See you next session!