Changing lyrics for a cover song

C

CelesteMac

New member
When you cover a song, do you change up the lyrics a bit? Do you sing it as written? If you are a song writer, how do you feel about a singer tweaking your lyrics?
 
I never change the lyrics when I sing cover songs. No one sings my songs so no fear of that.
It sounds like you're complaining about the singer in your band.
After having kids I found out that you cannot control anyone except yourself.
 
CelesteMac said:
do you change up the lyrics a bit?
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Absolutely. The best covers are the ones that make the song their own. If I have to change the lyrics to make my cover of the song more coherent, I absolutely will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U34UYZ04_g0 - glitch-punk cover of the Macarena. I don't know the spanish parts, so I cracked jokes instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USWNBmt2co4 - glam cover of The DBZ theme song. A translation compiled from part original and part English lyrics.
You've Probably Never Heard of Them | Regdar and the Fighters - This entire project, I tweaked a lot of lyrics to fit my delivery. (or because I misheard the originals.)
 
Weird Al Yankovik...
My covers usually fall into that category. Even when we did a competition here with "Brown Eyed Girl" I made it Gargamel and did an anti-Smurf theme.
Some of the best Christmas songs I've heard either changed the words a bit or just added in new parts to make them fuller...Mercy Me's The Christmas Sessions is one of my favorite Christmas albums for that very reason.

Guess I read too many Mad comics when I was growing up...
 
There are no rules on this. When doing covers live, sometimes the audience prefers to hear the song as originally done. There are some songs I hate hearing done any other way. But, it's personal preference, mostly. Some bands make a name for themselves by tweaking tunes and essentially making them their own.

Also, if you're the writer, while it's the greatest form of flattery, it can be quite interesting to hear another band interpret your song. Personally, I've often found it inspiring to hear how another band might change my song. Just instrumentation alone can change the whole feel of a song. Paul McCartney has said, as far as he's concerned, there's no bad cover.
 
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