Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Pop All Have Standards
I also have found videos of several of these songs performed on Sesame Street or The Muppet Show with celebrities. I've included those videos on the lenses, where I found them. Those shows were one of the best parts of being a child in the 1970s, and these music videos help me remember why! At some point, I'll alphabetize the songs in each section, but for now I think the lists are short enough to easily find a particular song. Drop me a note if you're looking for something in particular.
Song Categories and Other Shortcuts
To make it easier to find the standards and cover song lenses
Standards to Love: Cole Porter to Nat King Cole
Jazz, Swing, and Blues Standards
These lenses include lyrics, music videos, and guitar tabs or sources for sheet music. They also review the history of each song and have samples of the various cover versions. Nothing pleases me more than to find a really wild interpretation of what may have been a languishing standard, covered by an unexpected band, so if you know of any please drop by the lens and let me know. I'm always open to new interpretations of these time-tested songs.-
Frankie and Johnny: A Murderous Folk Music Standard
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Frankie and Johnny has been covered and recorded for a hundred years. While the music for Frankie and Johnny was copyrighted to Hughie Cannon in 1904, there have been various claims regarding the authorship of the lyrics. Some claim that the song goe...
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I've Got You Under My Skin: A Cole Porter Standard
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Cole Porter wrote I've Got You Under My Skin in 1936, as part of the score for the movie "Born to Dance", which fans of Jimmy Stewart may remember as starring Eleanor Powell. (Trivia tidbit: Virginia Bruce actually performed the song in the movie.) T...
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Stagger Lee: A Murderous Blues Standard
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It seems that folk and blues songs about otherwise minor historical characters, like Frankie and Johnny and Stagger Lee, make for lasting standards. The history of Stack O'Lee or Stagger Lee dates back to at least 1895, but the song may predate the m...
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Caravan: A Jazz Standard
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Although the original recording of Caravan was made in 1936 by Barney Bigard And His Jazzopators, Duke Ellington composed the music for this jazzy cover song recorded it many times. Then again, Irving Mills wrote the lyrics and the song was based on...
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Rock Me, Baby: A Blues Crossover Standard
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Rock Me, Baby has been bouncing around the blues world since its first recording in 1940 by Big Bill Broonzy, and has been covered and reimagined by dozens of musicians of both blues and rock-and-roll fame. The song has crossed genre boundaries and h...
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Something's Gotta Give
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Johnny Mercer wrote Something's Gotta Give for Fred Astaire's movie "Daddy Long Legs", released in 1955. From there, the song has taken on a life of its own. It was covered and reimagined by The McQuire Sisters that same year and various versions fro...
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One Note Samba: A Bossa Nova Standard
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Antonio Carlos (or Tom) Jobim wrote the music--and translated Newton Mendonca's Portuguese lyrics into English--for Samba Uma Nota So, or One Note Samba, but the song was first recorded by Stan Getz for his 1962 album "Jazz Samba". The song went on t...
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It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
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Irving Mills explained to the world, in 1931, that It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got that Swing, and the world listened. Duke Ellington kicked off the Swing Era with the song in the thirties and big bands all around the country picked up this fun...
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Sweet Georgia Brown: A Whistlin' Jazz Standard
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Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard got together and composed a little ditty, for which Kenneth Casey wrote some saucy lyrics. Thus, Sweet Georgia Brown was born, a song which Bernie and His Orchestra recorded in 1926, at the height of the roaring 20s, and...
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Sweet Home Chicago: A Blues Standard
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Like many blues songs, Sweet Home Chicago has shadowy origins based in borrowed riffs and rhythms from older songs. The first recording under that name, however, came from legendary blues-man Robert Johnson and was released in 1937. Most sources sugg...
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I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate
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Consider the Roaring 20s, with flappers and their fringe-covered dresses dancing the shimmy while goggle-eyed fellows stand by admiringly. This song would likely have been on the playlist of the band that was playing at that dance. Around 1915, Arma...
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Mack the Knife: A Swingin' Standard
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For a complete explanation of where Mack the Knife came from (and why you ought not be too taken with the scoundrel), check The Straight Dope. This lens picks up at the point where Louis Armstrong recorded the smash hit swing version of the song in 1...
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The Banana Boat Song: Day-O
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The Banana Boat Song, also known as Day-O, grew out of a traditional Caribbean folk song. Trinidadian Edric Connor first recorded The Banana Boat Song in England around 1954, under the title Day Dah Light (Banana Loaders Song), then The Tarriers and...
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Summertime By George Gershwin: The Greatest Cover Song Ever
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Everbody who's anybody in the music world has covered George Gershwin's Summertime at one point or another. From mournful, operatic versions true to the original aria to Janice Joplin's throaty shout-blues to Billy Stewart's exuberant scat, Gershwin'...
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Ain't Nobody's Business
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Would you believe that there are three songs, all having been recorded for decades, expressing identical sentiments that it "ain't nobody's business" what the performer does? While Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do and Ain't Nobody's Business But My Ow...
Modern Standards and Oft-Covered Rock Songs
Should You With to Rock
Like the lenses on standards, these cover song lenses include lyrics, music videos, and other resources. While it's much more difficult to find new versions of new songs, there are some that so immediately speak not only to music fans like me but to other bands that people can't resist recording their own versions.I've found it difficult to draw a firm line between the standards above and the "modern" standards. The Banana Boat Song above, for instance, could as easily be considered a modern cover song as a standard. Route 66 is of about the same vintage but fits better with rock songs than blues and jazz standards, in my opinion. Pardon my broad brush strokes in categorization and let me know if you would like to make the case for a song to be moved to a different category (or if I've missed a useful label entirely).
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Route 66: A Modern Standard
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Whether you remember Nat King Cole crooning about Route 66 in the 40s and 50s, Depeche Mode rocking the way down the road in the 80s, or you first heard John Mayer or Chuck Berry singing the song in the movie Cars, this song has been moving and inspi...
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I Fought the Law: A Rebel Standard
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In 1959, Sonny Curtis and The Crickets recorded I Fought the Law. No one took much notice until The Bobby Fuller Four re-recorded the song in 1965, changing Sonny's zip gun to a six gun but otherwise remaining faithful to the sound of the original. P...
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The Peter Gunn Theme Song
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Peter Gunn had a theme song, and it's been re-made and remixed since his television show debuted in 1958. Once it hit the airwaves, a new hit song began making its way through musical genres year after year. From the Duane Eddy smash in 1960 through...
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Big Yellow Taxi: An Environmental Standard
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Joni Mitchell wrote Big Yellow Taxi and first recorded the song for her 1970 album, "Ladies of the Canyon". While the title refers to the last verse, in which a big yellow taxi "took away my old man", the song became famous for its environmental stan...
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Cecilia Song Cover Versions
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Paul Simon wrote Cecilia and the song first appeared on the Simon and Garfunkel album "Bridge over Troubled Water" in 1970. Whether because that original version was so amazingly well done or simply because it was so popular--reaching #4 in the US--n...
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Knockin' on Heaven's Door Cover Versions
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Bob Dylan wrote Knockin' on Heaven's Door as a part of his soundtrack for a movie about Billy the Kid in the early 1970s. Whether it was the imagery of the lyrics or the global fascination with cowboys and bandits, the song was an instant success. Kn...
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American Pie: An American Standard
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Folk singer/songwriter Don McLean wrote American Pie, ostensibly about the plan crash that killed some of the most popular and promising musicians of the day in 1959. The song is a tribute to Buddy Holly and a lamentation of the decline of rock and r...
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You Give Me Fever
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Little Willie John had a Top 25 hit on the US charts in 1956 with Fever, a song written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell (under the name John Davenport). Two years later, Peggy Lee recorded her own version of the song with somewhat different lyrics...
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People Get Ready: A Gospel-Inspired Standard
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Curtis Mayfield wrote People Get Ready for The Impressions, who had their biggest hit with the song in 1965. The song has been credited with changing the face of popular music, and dozens of singers and bands have recorded cover versions ever since....
Holiday Standards and Cover Songs
Find the lyrics for, music videos of, sheet music to play, and the history of these Christmas classics. This category will be growing, as there are so many holiday songs that have been covered and reimagined over the years. If you've a favorite song about winter or the holiday season that you'd like me to make a lens about, please share it or check back!-
The Christmas Song
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When you take a song written by wonderful Mel Torme and Bob Wells, then have smooth Nat King Cole and his trio record it, you get an instant Christmas standard. That's what happened with The Christmas Song in 1946. Since then, the song has been perfo...
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Mele Kalikimaka: The Hawaiian Christmas Carol
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Robert Anderson, born in Honolulu, Hawaii and better known as R. Alex Anderson, wrote Mele Kalikimaka in the 1940s. The first major recording came from Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters, from Decca Records, in 1950. Although it's not the best-know...
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Feliz Navidad: A Merry Christmas Song
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In 1970, Jose Feliciano wrote Feliz Navidad and taught the world to wish each other a Merry Christmas en espanol. Little did anyone suspect that the bouncy little tune would become one of the most-played holiday songs in the world. But one listen wil...
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White Christmas: A Holiday Standard
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What lyrics conjure up more memories than, "I'm dreaming...of a white Christmas..." Whether you love the traditional Bing Crosby version, Martina McBride's country-pop version, or the hundreds of other takes on this classic, White C...
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Baby It's Cold Outside: A Winter Standard
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Frank Loesser wrote Baby It's Cold Outside for he and his wife, Lynn, to perform at a dinner party in 1944. The song was such a hit that the two were popular guests for years. They were so well known for the song, in fact, that Loesser decided to giv...
Can't Wait? Sample Cover Songs and Standards Right Here!
Other Places to Read about Standards
Blues and Jazz Standards Lists
- Basic Blues Standards and How to Play the Blues
- This is only a portion of a terrific site dedicated to the blues.
- Jazz Standards
- Lists, history, and much more fill this useful resource.
Anyone or Anything I've Missed?
Do you love cover songs and standards, too?
I've got a place for folks to disagree about the cover song question, actually, because I know that purists are out there. If you'd like to tell me exactly how wrong I am, try my debate lens, Cover Songs Rock!, and cut loose. You can also swing by and share your favorite song. Otherwise, drop a note here and let me know what you think. This list is always under development, so songs requested will get quick attention. Thank you!
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Reply
- Snozzle Snozzle Jan 25, 2009 @ 9:47 am
- Thanks for your comment on my forum thread. I think you've got the right idea by concentrating on one particular niche. You have lots of interesting lenses - 5* for this one.
Mike.
by Not-Pop
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