Worst Cover Songs of All-Time

Since I did the Best Cover Songs of All-Time a while back, it only seems fair that I do the other end of the remake spectrum:

1) "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"/"Mr. Tambourine Man"—WILLIAM SHATNER (1968) [TIE]  These have to be the all-time champion worst remakes of all-time, bar none.  A little background:  In an effort to capitalize on his success from "Star Trek", William Shatner recorded an album called The Transformed Man.  Not real sure what sort of transformation took place here, since the album cover featured him in Capt. Kirk mode anyway.  What always amazes me about these albums from the ‘60s where TV and movie people took a shot at "singing", is that more than one person was involved in making them, and surely somewhere along the way, someone—be it the producer, a record company exec., one of the musicians, perhaps the recording studio janitor, whoever—could’ve have had the balls to stand up and say to the celebrity, "You really ought to re-think this…" or "This is downright abysmal!"  Anything to prevent the celebrity from embarrassing himself/herself.

Anyway, Shatner didn’t actually sing here—he just recited the lyrics, and over-emoted them at every turn.  "Picture yourself…in a boat…on a river…"/"a girl…with kaleidoscope EYES!", augmented with some chirpy girly singers doing the "Lucy In The Sky" choruses.  I can only imagine what John Lennon thought about this savage butchering of his song, but upon hearing this travesty, Paul McCartney was quoted as saying, "That was just wrong!"  Or as Shatner himself would say it, "That…was…just…WRONG!"  "Tambourine Man" was even funnier, with our Captain Kirk pleading and screaming at the end, "MR. TAMBOURINE MAAAAANNNNN!"  One of the rare times when a Bob Dylan song did NOT sound better when someone else recorded it...

2) “You Shook Me All Night Long”—CELINE DION/ANASTACIA (2002?)  Even though this wasn’t an actual recording per se, I’m including it anyway because it may well be the ultimate Rock ‘N’ Roll cringe moment.  It happened circa. 2002 on one of VH-1’s insufferable “Divas” shows wherein torch song/movie soundtrack queen Celine Dion was teamed up with R&B shouter Anastacia to duet on AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Don’t believe me?  Check it out here and be horrified, if you dare!  To say that these two were out of their element here is a MAJOR understatement!  I can honestly say that the first time I viewed this travesty, I was rendered totally dumbfounded—no, wait, downright speechless—for at least 30 minutes afterwards!  Between Anesthesia wailing away like a banshee on steroids and Ms. Dion playing air guitar and duck-walking across the stage (in high heels) like Chuck Berry, this catastrophe can best be described as a desperate cry for help.  This thing made that Oscar opening number with Rob Lowe seem almost palpable.  Then again, it could've been worse—they could have done "Whole Lotta Rosie" (or "Big Balls").  In any event, we HAVE been slimed…

3) "If I Had A Hammer"/"Proud Mary"—LEONARD NIMOY (1969) [TIE]  It seems most illogical that Mr. Spock didn’t learn from Cap’n Kirk’s failure the year before, and tried to pass himself off as "Soul Brother #2".  To his credit, he at least actually tried to sing, but sadly Nimoy's monotone voice had all the soul of a Lawrence Welk record, even with his valiant attempt to sound like John Fogerty ("Big wheels keep on toy-nin/Proud Mary keep on boy-nin").  Brother Leo was a fine narrator on TV, but he proved beyond the shadow of a doubt here that he ain’t no Sinatra—not even a Mel Torme.  The cheesy backing tracks were rather comical too—they seemed to have captured the essence of what the Larry Davis Experience on "The Simpsons" might have sounded like in real life...

4) “Another Saturday Night”—CAT STEVENS (1975)  Ol’ Yusuf sounded so utterly silly on this Sam Cooke classic—after sounding like a tree-hugging hippie on everything he’d recorded prior to it.  This putrid piece of chart desperation was akin to Bread doing “Mony, Mony” or Seals & Crofts doing "Wooly Bully".  It wasn’t long afterward that Cat got religion and shunned secular music and started supporting Islamic calls for Salman Rushdie’s execution, etc.  I'll politely defer to what comedian Dennis Miller once said on “Saturday Night Live" to convey my personal opinion here: “So much for all that ‘Peace Train’ crap, eh Cat?”  I hear Yusuf no longer shuns secular music and recently put out a new CD, and also loaned one or two of his old songs to current TV ads.  I guess if you need the paycheck bad enough, screw that religion crap, eh Cat (er uh, Yusuf)?  Asshole...

5) “Helter Skelter”—PAT BENATAR (1981)  Man, I hate to pick on Pat here, since she starred in more than a few of my dreams during my testosterony pubescent years, but somehow a sexy chick singer in a spandex leotard and tights singing a song inspired by Charlie Manson’s mayhem doesn’t quite register.  Motley Crue’s version wasn’t much better, either.

6) “I Saw Him Standing There”—TIFFANY (1987)  Didn’t this thing sound like it came from the soundtrack of some crappy Alyssa Milano movie or something?  Young Tiff' made Debbie Gibson seem like Madonna in comparison…

7) “Knock On Wood”—ANITA WOOD (1979)  The late Otis Redding must have been turning in his grave when this disco-fied piece of noise came out.  Nothing subtle about this recording, is there?

8) "Tell Me Why"—APRIL WINE (1982)  I have no clue why April Wine chose to take this really cool upbeat Beatles song and slow it to a crawl and suck the life right out of it.

9) "Rock And Roll All Nite"—GIN BLOSSOMS (1994)  Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!  Very similar to #8 here.  You don’t play this song slow under ANY circumstances.

10) “Cool Jerk ‘90”—THE GO-GO’S (1990)  Hate to criticize my girls here (after all, I went through puberty with them too—Jane and Belinda, in particular—and this one wasn't so bad as it was just totally unnecessary.  The Go-Go’s had already successfully covered this 1966 classic by The Capitols on their second album in 1982.  The song was a staple of their live act as well, but they redid the thing AGAIN just to have a new track on the first of their many greatest hits albums as part of the first of their many reunions, and it wasn’t nearly as good as the first time.  Might’ve made more sense just to throw in a live version of it on the best-of CD, hmm?  By the way (and I don't mean to be mean), it seems kinda sad when you have more greatest hits albums than original albums, don't it?