Performing covers of songs composed by other artists has been the foundation of music for centuries. Prior to the recording era, almost all music performed in public was composed by another person. The most obvious examples are classical compositions. Unless the original composer performed their own pieces during their lifetime, very few people have ever had the chance to hear the most famous classical compositions performed as anything but covers. Similarly, folk music was most often passed down through the generations via oral tradition, with the original writer unknown to the performers, if one can even be identified. The music of the 19^th century, when the mass production of sheet music became a major industry, led to the performance of other people’s music throughout households, cafes, saloons, and live music venues. At the advent of the recording era in the early 20^th century, some artists began to record their own compositions, but most music was still written by songwriters and performed by others. The success of songs written by songwriting groups, such as those identified with Tin Pan Alley, led to decades of recorded music being composed by professional songwriters. Songwriting team Leiber & Stoller, the Brill Building composers, and Motown’s Hitsville team are just three examples of the hundreds of similar songwriting machines that cranked out almost all the music we know from before 1965. Artists like Ray Charles, The Beatles, and Stevie Wonder proved that songwriters can also be great performers, but the hit-making machines of the first 100 years of recorded music have never gone away and modern music is still predominated by music composed by songwriters other than the performers.

That being said, there are obviously thousands of artists who have been successful performing their own compositions. Many times, those artists are the ones who change the course of popular music. By performing one’s own songs, an artist is best able to present a complete song (music, lyrics, vocals, instrumentation) in a way that matches their vision. However, even those artists are often dependent on covers for their success. Most bands start out by learning to play other people’s songs because that is how one learns to play an instrument. By recording a song that was previously a hit, an artist can gain immediate attention if their cover is interesting, well-timed, or presents the song in an original way. This is true for all styles of music. It is the foundation of jazz, where the performance of standards is the foundation of the genre. It is how young bands learn to play together in their garage and then write their own material. Rap music wouldn’t exist if not for the sampling techniques developed during the last forty years. Performing covers is arguably the most important ability of all performers.

I began this Cover Stories series as a way to spotlight interesting covers of songs, but when I decided the theme for Part Two of this Faux Show series I realized that a discussion of covers, as just provided, is important in order to set up the next discussion. Recording popular covers of songs is often the best way for an artist to gain attention, make money, and become popular. However, some artists can move beyond basic covers of songs and produce covers that sound like their own creations. There are plenty of examples of this but I’m going to focus this show on one artist who may have done it better than anyone.

The Fall are one of my favorite bands, so I am very biased in making this statement, but I believe they were the greatest cover band since The Beatles. I originally considered selecting R.E.M. as the theme of this show because they were an amazing cover band during their first five years. The Big 5 R.E.M. albums before Green, along with the collection Dead Letter Office, are filled with amazing covers, including some of their most famous songs of that period. As I thought about how to present R.E.M. in this way, I realized that they are very similar to The Beatles in that they both started out as prolific cover bands who then dropped that aspect of recording and focused their albums on original material. The Fall, on the other hand, were not a cover band at the start. It wasn’t until several years into their existence that they began recording covers as singles and B-sides. I believe this is the reason that their covers are so unique. They built their sound from the unique musical vision of founding, and only consistent, member Mark E. Smith and incorporated their cover versions of songs into that unique sound. When Mark E. Smith sings a cover, he may as well be singing his own composition because he did not make these choices just to pay homage to the original song or artist. He covered songs because he liked them, but I don’t believe he cared what the original artist or the listening public thought about his cover versions. This freed the band to make covers unlike any other band who recorded before or after. This makes The Fall the greatest cover band in the history of rock and roll.  

I’ve selected ten out of the dozens (at least 30 or 40) covers recorded by The Fall. I’ve attempted to select songs that show different aspects of the band’s cover choices. There are covers of songs by main influences on the band, covers of songs that Mark E. Smith most likely listened to as a youngster, and covers of songs that he most likely enjoyed as he got older and continued listening to music.

As usual, I’ve provided a playlist. I’ve included both the originals and the cover versions to present some juxtaposition. In all cases, I think the ability of The Fall to make the song their own shines through.

Amazon Music

Spotify

Artists Who Influenced The Fall

The Monks

I have no idea when Mark E. Smith first heard the 1966 album Black Monk Time by The Monks, but it is impossible to listen to this brilliant piece of proto-punk and not hear the origins of The Fall living in the grooves of its vinyl. From the spoken vocal style to the acerbic lyrics to the minimal organ to the repetitive drum/guitar grooves, The Monks and The Fall were both born from the same fountain of alternative music inspiration. The music of The Fall is not for everyone. The music of The Monks, even less so. But once you know the music of both, they are inseparable.

Once one understands the influence of The Monks on The Fall, it is hard to believe that The Fall’s cover of The Monks did not occur until they recorded their Manchester Scene inspired album Extricate in 1990. At the time, the band had been recording for over a dozen years and gone through many changes in personnel and style. For this reason, it makes sense that some Fall fans were unimpressed by yet another change to the band’s sound in 1990, but I have loved this album since I first reviewed a promo copy during my days in college radio. They didn’t continue making this more dance-inspired music for long, but this album is filled with one banger after another. The extremely Manchester Scene styled composition “Telephone Thing” is arguably as good as any song by Happy Mondays or Stone Roses. The album is not all dance-inspired, but even the songs that sound like their previous three releases often have a steadier beat than one might expect. It is for this reason that the song “Black Monk Theme (Part One),” a cover of “I Hate You” by The Monks, was such a surprising choice at this time in their recording history. Perhaps this is why Smith finally decided to cover them. If The Fall had recorded a version of “I Hate You,” or any other Monks song, in the early ‘80s then it would have sounded like an imitation. By recording this song by The Monks at this point in their career, The Fall present a song that sounds like their own. Unless one was aware of The Monks at the time, they would not have had any idea that this was not an original Fall composition. For this reason, this is Exhibit A in my argument for The Fall as the greatest cover band.  

Can

The line from Can to The Fall connects both bands with the post-punk sound of the 21^st century. Nowadays, it is easy to find current bands reference The Fall as an influence. The ‘90s gave us bands such as Pavement and At The Drive In who sometimes sounded like a Fall rip-off (but not in a bad way). Even Sonic Youth and The Pixies were influenced by The Fall in the ‘80s. Whether they were conscious of it at the time, this means that all these bands were influenced by The Monks and, more importantly, Can. That is the beauty of musical influences – bands can live on for decades (even centuries) in the music of the future. When The Fall decided to cover Can on their 1986 masterpiece This Nation’s Saving Grace, it was already a long time coming. Can’s influence was present from the beginning of The Fall’s recordings in the late ‘70s. That is one of the prime factors that made The Fall such a unique punk band. I’ve discussed in past Faux Shows that I believe The Fall were the greatest first-wave punk band. They are rarely discussed in those terms, but that is because the history of punk has been written since the beginning to have originated with The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash. If The Fall had been included in that discussion from the beginning, no one would question the validity of the argument. One listen to their debut Live At The Witch Trials shows that The Fall were at the forefront of punk in the late ‘70s.

The music was written by Smith’s then-wife Brix and drummer Karl Burns. The influence of Brix Smith is a topic for another show, but her pop sensibilities made the mid-80s Fall albums sound completely different than their earlier recordings. More importantly, the influence of Burns can’t be overstated. The music of Can was driven by their drummer Jaki Liebezeit and Burns’ drumming for The Fall was similarly important to the sound of the band for years. Like most Fall members, Burns was fired and rehired many times, but his presence on the This Nation’s Saving Grace sessions is evident throughout the album. The song is most obviously a cover of “Oh Yeah” from Can’s 1972 masterpiece Tago Mago (their first to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki), but also draws from other Can material such as “Bel Air” and “Gomorrah,” as well as a later Can song called “Midnight Men.”* The end result blends the music of Can with the vision of Mark E. Smith into one of the best songs of the ‘80s that most people have never heard. It is a brilliant cover – it references the music of Can, but at no point does it sound like a song that Can would have recorded. Instead, it sounds like an original Fall song, and is a bookend for the album. For this reason, this is Exhibit B in my argument for The Fall as the greatest cover band.  

*Thanks to Wikipedia for that research!

Popular Covers

Several of the most well-known singles by The Fall are covers. I’ve selected three of those songs. Upon its release in 1986, “Mr. Pharmacist” was the biggest hit for the band (#75). The band’s only Top 40 hits before 1992 were “There’s A Ghost In My House” (#30) and “Victoria” (#35). However, Mark E. Smith was never one to cover a song just to make a hit. Even his cover hits are songs that present some aspects of his songwriting that he knew would work as a cover. These three covers provide Exhibit C in my argument for The Fall as the greatest cover band.

Mr. Pharmacist

The Other Half are not a band played on classic rock radio. They are less well known than almost all their contemporaries, such as The Sonics, The Kingsmen, The Troggs, and any other ‘60s garage bands one can name. In fact, if their song “Mr. Pharmacist” had not been selected for inclusion on the 1985 compilation Nuggets Volume 12, Punk Part Three, it is possible that no one would know them. Mark E. Smith was clearly a fan of early American rock and roll, so it is possible that he knew this tune from before the 1985 compilation, but I assume he first heard it there. No matter what Smith’s history is with the song, it is obvious that he would feel a kinship with a band such as The Other Half. The garage rock of the ‘60s was created by young musicians who were inspired by the rock and roll of artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Wanda Jackson. These garage bands took the rawest sounds of early rock and roll and presented it with as much musical ability as they could muster. They were the direct connection between early rock and roll and the proto-punk of bands such as The Stooges, The MC5, and The Flaming Groovies. This all lead directly to The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Fall, and every other punk band of the late ‘70s.

The simplistically incessant beat drives the song from a stomping fuzz guitar anthem into an explosion of drums, harmonica, and guitars before returning to the stomp that continues through to the end. It is a two-and-a-half-minute song of garage rock perfection. It may not have been as popular as “Wild Thing” or “Louie Louie,” but that may be because the lyrics are clearly drug-related, and popular music in the ‘60s was determined by factors beyond the sound of the music. As a garage rock song, it is exemplary. The Fall’s version of the song is a very straightforward cover. I think this is why it was the band’s first true British hit. Before this single, The Fall had never recorded such an in-your-face, riff-driven song as this one. It is short, bursts with energy, and sounds as much like a throwback to the music of the ‘60s as it does a post-punk anthem. My guess is that the band did not expect it to become their biggest hit at the time. Mark E. Smith probably scoffed at the success of the song, and he certainly had no intent on trying to copy the song’s success to record more hits. Still, the success and longevity of the band was in part due to their ability to create a song like this one. It is catchy and fun, while also sounding like The Fall and not like any other band.

There’s a Ghost In My House

The song “There’s A Ghost In My House” was written in 1966 by the Motown hitmaking machine Holland, Dozier, and Holland and recorded by R. Dean Taylor. It didn’t chart at the time but became a #3 British hit in 1974 after becoming a dance club favorite. It was subsequently recorded by several British artists throughout the ‘80s. Stories like this are always interesting to me. There is no reason the original was not a U.S. hit in 1967, but there is no way to guess if a song will be a hit. Perhaps the lyrics were too esoteric. An old school Motown song about a house being haunted by a lover who has moved on to a new relationship may have been too much for people to get behind during the psychedelic explosion of 1967. Perhaps it was still too early for Taylor to have a hit. He wouldn’t become a one-hit wonder until 1970 with his #5 smash “Indiana Wants Me” (most people don’t remember that one either). No matter the reason, the reissue of the song in 1974 due to some dance club deejays discovering it is certainly not something that happens every day.

Peaking at #30, it is the most successful single in their long history. That is a ridiculous fact if one believes that hits correlate with the quality of a song because “There’s A Ghost In My House” is in no way one of the band’s best recordings. As a cover, it is much like “Mr. Pharmacist” in its straightforward approach. It is catchy and hook-laden, just like the original. Its success is obviously also due to its past popularity in England as a hit with multiple cover versions. However, unlike “Mr. Pharmacist,” the song sounds much more like a Fall song than “Mr. Pharmacist.” The spoken word break at the end is Mark E. Smith at his best – a distorted recitation over a repetitive guitar riff with odd backing harmonies. Once again, this cover may be true to the original in some aspects, but it sounds like The Fall in a way that only The Fall were able to accomplish.

Victoria

The mid-80s version of The Fall was at its peak when the band recorded The Frenz Experiment in 1988. Unfortunately, the music on the album was their first less-than-stellar collection since the early 80s. Some would argue that it was their first miss after nine hits. I’m as big a fan as you’ll find, but I seldom listen to this record, and only to certain tracks when I do. However, this record’s saving grace is the inclusion of their most famous cover. The sound of The Kinks may not be a primary influence on The Fall (especially The Kinks of the ‘70s and ‘80s), but the lyrics of Ray Davies are a different story. Davies was always a genius at the use of satire, frustration, and even vitriol to get across his message of social commentary. Mark E. Smith was no different. Although Smith’s lyrics were much more obtuse than Davies’, they were both masters of writing songs about British class, politics, and other social issues. The Fall could have taken the songs of The Kinks albums Village Green, Arthur, and Lola and written new music for them, and no one would have thought they weren’t original Fall songs. It is often argued that the lyrical content of the late 70s British punk era could not have existed if Davies had not prepared the country to accept it as culturally relevant and not just misguided, youthful anger.

“Mr. Pharmacist” was an unknown garage band single from the mid-60s before it was re-issued on the great Nuggets compilations of garage rock in the early ‘80s. “There’s A Ghost In My House” was a forgotten song from 1966 until it surprisingly became a British club hit in 1974 and hit #3 on the U.K. charts. On the other hand, “Victoria” was a song that everyone in England knew. It is still one of the most popular songs by one of the most popular bands in British music. As the opener to The Kinks album Arthur, the song presents a satirical juxtaposition of the grandiose goals of the Victorian Age with the reality of daily life by the working poor in the 19^th century. Lyrically, it is almost too obvious a choice for The Fall to cover. It would have made more sense for Billy Bragg to cover the song, as it almost smashes the listener over the head with its obvious commentary – a much more common lyrical method for Bragg than for the usually difficult-to-understand Smith. In addition, The Fall present the song as a straight cover without their usual amount of musical experimentation, rhythmic changes, and riff alteration. However, the cover is still a Fall creation. Even at their most conservative, The Fall never sounded like any band other than The Fall.

Five More Interesting Covers

These last five covers show the range of material that The Fall were able to cover and still maintain their identity. The diversity of the originals shows that Mark E. Smith had a love of many types of music. Unlike most artists, who tend to focus on songs like their own when selecting covers, The Fall’s broad view of quality cover material served them well for decades. The sound of The Fall’s original material was always evolving but their covers were just as varied across their different periods.

Lost In Music

The third single from Sister Sledge’s 1979 album We Are Family is one of their most iconic singles. “Lost In Music” has enjoyed multiple lives throughout the years, especially in England, having charted on the UK singles charts three times – first in 1979 (#17), next in 1984 (#4), and finally in 1993 (#14). Produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the song is a stone-cold groove about the love of music.

The Fall recorded the song for their 1993 album The Infotainment Scan. This record was described at the time as their most accessible collection. It sold very well in the U.S., at least very well for The Fall, and received very favorable reviews. As a lifelong Fall devotee, I can’t say that this album is any more accessible than most of their albums from the late ‘80s through the mid-90s. I imagine that people found it accessible because of the relatively high number of dance-inspired tracks. If a Fall album was going to contain a cover of “Lost In Music,” this is a pretty good choice. However, the cover stands out on the album because it is not recorded as a straight-ahead dance single. It is obviously a solid groove, much like the original, but Smith’s vocals are in top form with his ability to present the melody while still maintaining his trademark vocalization method. This is one of the most experimental disco songs ever recorded, if it is disco at all. Since its release, many have pointed to the song as Smith’s attempt to attack those who still thought of disco as a lower form of music almost 20 years after its creation. This may or may not be the point of the song, but if this is true then it is an incredible moment in recording history. The original punk movement was in part created as a negative reaction to disco in the late ‘70s, so it is amazing that post-punk veterans like The Fall were coming to the defense of disco in the early ‘90s.

Funnel of Love and Rollin’ Danny

Mark E. Smith often delved deep into the crate of old rock and roll when he selected covers. Two of his best were by two of the lesser-known architects of ‘50s rock. Wanda Jackson recorded “Funnel Of Love” in 1960 and released it as the B-side to her country hit “Right or Wrong.” The song was one of her last rock and roll recordings, but Jackson was the Queen of Rock and Roll in the ‘50s before shifting into country music in the ‘60s. Relatively ignored at the time, Jackson’s recordings have lived on to influence generations of female rockers.

Gene Vincent was an architect of rock and roll, especially the subgenre known as rockabilly. His song “Be-Bop-A-Lula” is one of the first rockabilly recordings, and he released a string of records that define the genre. Seventy years later, and one would be hard pressed to find anyone who remembers that Vincent and his band the Blue Caps recorded “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” much less name any other songs by the band.

It is one of the faster numbers on the album, and a quality example of rockabilly in the Elvis style – watered down with Jordonaires-style backing vocals – but it has a nice energy and one can imagine that a live performance of the song may have presented a raw energy that the ballads Vincent was prone to record could never provide.

Both songs make sense as Fall covers. Smith deconstructs “Funnel of Love” and reassembles its rock and roll roots into an entirely new song that is only recognizable as the Jackson song due to the lyrics. Recorded for the band’s 2010 album Your Future Our Clutter, it is one of the last great Fall covers. By this time, The Fall were on to their 100^th personnel change, but Smith’s vision never wavered throughout his forty years of recording. Even while the band explores the outskirts of the tune, the basic riff and beat are still 100% Mark E. Smith. “Rollin’ Dany,” on the other hand, is an earlier Fall cover. Recorded in 1985 as a B-side for the “Couldn’t Get Ahead” single, Smith’s version of the song is more rockabilly than Vincent’s original, watered down version. The song starts out like an out-of-time Carl Perkins jam and then explodes into a solo section that crushes any solo that Scotty Moore ever recorded. I have always loved this cover as one of my favorite Fall tracks. It presents the sound of the mid-80s Fall in all of their glory with a simple two-and-a-half-minute rock song.

War and I’m Not Satisfied

The Fall may have covered old rock, soul, and disco, but they were also one of the more experimental post-punk bands. Their albums and singles are filled with originals that range from minimalist repetition to avant-garde experimentation to noise collage. It is no surprise, then, that they would turn to the experimental side of rock to find covers to perform. “War” by Henry Cow and “I’m Not Satisfied” by The Mothers of Invention are two perfect examples of this aspect of Mark E. Smith’s experimental side.

Slapp Happy were on the more experimental side of that movement, which is saying something. Henry Cow were from the same era that included Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine, Gong, and other British/French experimental groups. The opener “War” is one of the more conservative tracks on the album, but it packs a lot of variety into its two-and-a-half minutes. Songs like this, and bands like Henry Cow, need to be heard to fully understand, so I won’t attempt to describe the music further. The Mothers of Invention were Frank Zappa’s band. If you don’t know what that sounds like, you should go learn something today and listen to their debut album Freak Out! You may not like it, but everyone should at least know what Frank Zappa was doing in the ’60s and ‘70s to understand his influence on modern music. “I’m Not Satisfied” is from that debut, although it was the next to last track on side two of a double album filled with a diversity of experimental music.

The Fall’s covers of these two songs make perfect sense. Smith’s love of the German progressive band Can most assuredly meant he was aware of the other artists of the movement, and he must have appreciated the experimentation and attitude of Frank Zappa. If there was ever old music that provided perfect cover fodder for the band, it was material like this. In fact, straight covers of these songs would have fit perfectly into the overall discography of the band. But, that is not the way The Fall operated. The cover of “War” takes the song from its minimally repetitive, angular guitar riff origins into the world of techno experimentation. Sounding as much like an Adrian Sherwood On-U-Sound production as a Fall song, it stomps its way through three minutes of sledgehammer beats and delivers something that is virtually unrecognizable as a cover of the original. The cover of “I’m Not Satisfied” takes the original, a psychedelic homage to 60s pop a la Burt Bacharach and The Supremes, and turns it into a simple alt-rock mid-tempo ballad. Amazingly, The Fall version of the song sounds like it could have been a hit in 1995, while the original must have sounded like nothing anyone had ever heard before. With both songs, The Fall create brand new music that sounds like The Fall and not like the originals.

Conclusion

With these five covers, I round out my ten selections and rest my case for The Fall as the greatest cover band of all time. I specifically selected these ten songs to showcase the diversity of the band and their ability to make every song they recorded sound as if they had written it. Often when I start out to write these shows, I don’t have a fully defined plan. I tend to start with a theme that interests me and then use the research to deepen my understanding of the music. This show is possibly the most expansive example yet of how my research not only led me to create a show that could be the start of a book (if that was my purpose), but also broadened my understanding of the topic. Going back to listen to dozens of songs covered by The Fall allowed me to evaluate the music of the band with a depth and breadth I had never done before. It is one thing to love a band and listen to their music. It is an entirely different exercise to critique their music from a historical and evolutionary musical perspective. One of my most despised methods of modern criticism is when the critic writes a review of a film or album after they have already decided the tag line or point of view they wish to present. It is always obvious, especially when the review makes no sense based on the content of the product being reviewed. I can’t count how many times I have started writing a Faux Show (even just a section of the show) and then scrapped everything I have written because my original point of view was flawed, or even incorrect. This show, for example, states early on that The Fall are one of my favorite bands, so I am very biased in making this statement, but I believe they were the greatest cover band since The Beatles. I wrote that because I knew coming in that I had to defend this statement and may not be able to do so because of an inherent bias due to my love of the band. Throughout this entire writing, I have feared that I would be unable to back up my opinion with evidence that made sense and then would have to scrap the entire show. Having now completed what is possibly the most detailed Faux Show I have written, I honestly believe that my original opinion was correct, and I have proven it with as much evidence as one can provide in this amount of text to defend such a subjective statement. The Fall were the greatest cover band – better than The Beatles or any other band you can name. They created covers that were musical works of art. They created covers that have outlived the originals. They created covers that are often the definitive versions of the songs. Most importantly, they created covers that are indistinguishable from their original songs in theme, quality, or presentation. That is the definition of a great cover, and The Fall succeeded in accomplishing it with every cover they recorded.   

That wraps up Part Two of this Cover Stories series. There will be many more to come. In the meantime, as always, thanks for listening (and reading)!

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