“Only Happy When it Rains” (Garbage Cover)

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…

Tomorrow Jim will entertain us with his Super Sunday edition.  I’ll be back to check it out, and i’m sure you will be 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!

“Man On The Moon” (REM Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Here’s another awesome session for you.  This is a song from REM called “Man on the Moon”.  I’ve covered two songs from this band in the past, and this will make it a hat trick.

This song is from one of my favorite albums by REM called “Automatic for the People”.  This song is a great song that is a tribute to Andy Kaufman.

And, it’s just a coincidence that I had planned on covering REM and Chris had made a REM pun yesterday.  And to think, I’d have to come up with something creative in the pun department…

…maybe next post.  It’s too late for me.

Seeya tomorrow for Jim’s next cover song!

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!

“Runnin’ Down A Dream” (Tom Petty Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and welcome to your Friday edition of “Da Sessions” (as a student of mine put it – well, it could’ve been from Ditka too).  Tonight I bring you another one of those “sorta” new band (solo artist?) songs that we like to break out quite frequently.

Tonight’s song is a Tom Petty classic called “Runnin’ Down A Dream”.  It is from his first solo album called “Full Moon Fever”.  This song is well known as having that really cool riff, with the fuzzy guitar and acoustic guitar and constant rock drum beat.  Well, that doesn’t narrow it down much.  Petty is known for having a lot of kick ass tunes in his library.

Tonight I had a battle with myself.  I had no idea which song to record tonight out of the 5 I have remaining for the year.  I spent about an hour deciding to record this song because I felt it was the least intensive on my voice.

I actually had myself a great day today.  I woke up very early and discovered that I was getting an early start to my weekend.  I do so love snow storms and I love it when we get an unexpected day off to enjoy it.  I ended up doing some decorating around the house for Hanukkah, made pancakes for breakfast, and got to enjoy a lot of different things in Final Fantasy XI today.  Because it didn’t start snowing here until about 11:30, my wife still got to go out to the lunch with her coworkers that she wanted to do, and I got to hit the gym like normal.

Now all I got to do is find a time tomorrow to finish my holiday shopping.  Thankfully my wife took care of most of it :).

And I also have tomorrow morning off as well.  Snowstorms do rule.  They’re so good, “It’s like jumping into a foam block pit after being launched off a trampoline 15 feet into the air and you lay there for a while staring up at the ceiling thinking how cool that whole thing just was good”.

Well, tomorrow you can count on Jim to enhance your viewing experience with another acoustic cover song.  I’ll be back on Monday for my next installment.  Seeya then!

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!

“You Can’t Count On Me” (A Counting Crows Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to another all-new Laptop Session! Today’s selection is “You Can’t Count On Me,” from the Counting Crows’ new album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. This record is a concept album of sorts, as Adam Duritz sings his way from a raucous Saturday night out on the town to a Sunday morning of realizations. I’ve been really excited about recording a tune from this album — there’s been a lot of good new music this year so far, but this has been one of my favorite albums. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Duritz and company, but I have a lot of respect for him as a songwriter and a performer after listening repeatedly to the album.

I hope you like my cover song version of this song, and if you do, you should check out the official in-the-studio videos posted on the Counting Crows YouTube channel. And don’t forget to come back to https://guitarbucketlist.com tomorrow for another quality video blog post from our very own Jeff Copperthite…

See you next session!