“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!

The BEST COVER SONGS of 2011 (The Year-End Review Awards)

By Chris Moore:

What better way to kick off a Monday at the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video blog than to unveil the Weekend Review’s picks for the top ten cover songs of 2011.  After all, this is kind of our thing.  And this has been a busy year for covers.  Not only were there two – not one, but two! – collections of Buddy Holly covers released as tribute to the legendary singer/songwriter in 2011, but there were also two covers EPs put out by Relient K.  This is not to mention Brian Wilson digging back to his childhood (farther back than the Gershwin brothers this time) for the inspiration to In the Key of Disney.

A regular amount of covers wasn’t enough for 2011.  No, no: 2011 needed more covers!  Now, as you’ll recall from our mission statement, it has always been the goal of this blog to put an end to the proliferation of bad covers on YouTube.  In keeping with that tradition, we will now take the time to recognize these non-YouTube covers that have demonstrated excellence this year, standing out from the pack of mediocre (or worse) ones:

1)  “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” – Cee Lo Green (Cover of Buddy Holly)

2)  “Caroline No” – America (Cover of the Beach Boys)

3)  “Here Comes My Girl” – Relient K (Cover of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

4)  “Colors of the Wind” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

5)  “Baby” – Relient K (Cover of Justin Bieber)

6)  “Not Fade Away” – Florence and the Machine (Cover of Buddy Holly)

7)  “Interstate Love Song” – Relient K (Cover of Stone Temple Pilots)

8)  “It’s So Easy” – Paul McCartney (Cover of Buddy Holly)

9)  “Listen to Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of Buddy Holly)

10) “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

 

Honorable Mention:

“Surf Wax America” – Relient K (Cover of Weezer)

“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!