The Covers Project

Hey. Hey, man. Hey. You remember that when, uh, oh geez, who was it -- that one band, when they covered that one song by, oh you know, that dude, you know, in the pants?

You might have to give 'em a little more info than that to go on, but a great resource for information on song covers is The Covers Project, reason number 9,746 why I love the Internets.

The Web site is pretty bare bones, but it's good at what it does. You can use it a couple different ways: Type in the name of a song (say, "If I Needed You" by Townes Van Zandt) and you'll get a list of artists who have covered it (Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris). Or search for the name of an artist (or browse under the "artists" tab) and get a list of songs they've covered AND a list of songs of theirs that others have covered. So ... type in Townes Van Zandt and you get in his "Songs This Artists Has Covered" list the fact that he at some point recorded "Dead Flowers," which the site handily tells you is by the Rolling Stones, though it's not so handy as to inform you that that happens to be my favorite Stones song ... And below that you get a "Songs Originally By This Artist" list, which lists song titles and the artists who covered each one. And! And! And! there are links to each cover, when available, in Amazon and/or iTunes.

I predict this site could lead to a new spin on the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game -- this time in a format I can actually play with some degree of success. The site's front page gives the following example of a cover "chain":

The The Drifters song "On Broadway" was covered by Gary Numan
The Gary Numan song "I Die, You Die" was covered by Magnetic Fields
The Magnetic Fields song "Falling In Love With The Wolfboy" was covered by Dead Dog
The Dead Dog song "The Optimist" was covered by Love, Execution Style

Oh, the fun never ends!

So next time you really get the feeling that someone ... someone ... recorded "Nervous Breakdown" before Ryan Adams, check with your buddies at The Covers Project.

Black Flag, by the way. But you knew that.