No cover versions

[Benjm]

Kraftwerk?

[Greenlander]

Joy Division covered Louie, Louie live, but nothing on their records.
New Order's "Ceremony" is sort of a Joy Division cover.

There's a live version of 'Sister Ray' on Still, but no covers from the studio.

[Sits]

The Waterboys?
World Party?

[ad hoc]

The Waterboys used to cover Van Morrison's Sweet Thing live pretty much at every gig back in the mid 80s. I have the feeling it made it onto at least one album.

I think post Fisherman's Blues there were a number of "trad arr." tracks

[Sits]

I can imagine them/him doing Sweet Thing very well actually.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Sweet Thing was on Fisherman's Blues itself, as was This Land is Your Land (with amended lyrics). As much as I like the Waterboys (I've still seen them more than any other act) I did laugh at the quote from someone interviewing Van Morrison who innocently asked what he thought of their version of Sweet Thing, to be met with a curt "well it's not as good as mine is it?".

The Waterboys also did a full album setting WB Yeats poems to music (after first doing it on Fisherman's Blues) which I guess are semi-cover versions.

Plus loads at live shows, some of which made it on to an official live album, and some b-sides.

Fill your raggle taggle boots here. (Note the same will also settle some other queries on this thread).

I didn't keep track of World Party but that same site reveals a few (and a not surprising Beatles fixation), some of which seem to have been released later on a box set.

[Jah Womble]

New Order's "Ceremony" is sort of a Joy Division cover.

Well, yes, in that Ian Curtis wrote it. But obviously composed by the same musicians.

New Order burst into a strange cover of My Girl (by The Temptations, rather than Madness) on one occasion that I saw them. (They weren't great live, to be honest.)

[Sits]

Sweet Thing was on Fisherman's Blues itself, as was This Land is Your Land (with amended lyrics). As much as I like the Waterboys (I've still seen them more than any other act) I did laugh at the quote from someone interviewing Van Morrison who innocently asked what he thought of their version of Sweet Thing, to be met with a curt "well it's not as good as mine is it?".

The Waterboys also did a full album setting WB Yeats poems to music (after first doing it on Fisherman's Blues) which I guess are semi-cover versions.

Plus loads at live shows, some of which made it on to an official live album, and some b-sides.

Fill your raggle taggle boots here. (Note the same will also settle some other queries on this thread).

I didn't keep track of World Party but that same site reveals a few (and a not surprising Beatles fixation), some of which seem to have been released later on a box set.

Bloody hell that’s a site you can get lost in. I’m surprised Karl Wallinger didn’t do any Stones covers, as his sound (to me) is/was closer to theirs than the Beatles.

[Mumpo]

Originally posted by elguapo4
Have Depeche Mode ever done a cover version? I can't think of one

Reply by Jah Womble
A Google search threw up at least a dozen, including Route 66 as mentioned by WFD


Where did you find a list, JW? Every search term I try comes up with a list of other bands' DM covers.

The only ones I can think of apart from Route 66 are Iggy and the Stooges' Dirt (I Feel Loved b-side) and Alan Wilder playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the Little 15 12".

[Sits]

WFD’s link shows six covers by DM including Heroes which sounds intriguing.

[Jah Womble]

Originally posted by elguapo4
Have Depeche Mode ever done a cover version? I can't think of one

Reply by Jah Womble
A Google search threw up at least a dozen, including Route 66 as mentioned by WFD


Where did you find a list, JW? Every search term I try comes up with a list of other bands' DM covers.

The only ones I can think of apart from Route 66 are Iggy and the Stooges' Dirt (I Feel Loved b-side) and Alan Wilder playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the Little 15 12".

If you scroll down here, there's a list of a few tracks covered by Dave G and his pals:

https://www.setlist.fm/stats/covers/...-73d6b235.html

[Mumpo]

Ah right, sorry, I was only including covers committed to vinyl/plastic. The Pacemakers, Everly Bros, Crystals and Roxy covers are all from their very early formative, pre-Speak And Spell era, I think. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth was one of the songs Martin Gore covered on his Counterfeit EP back in 1988, didn't know they'd performed it as a band.

[Jah Womble]

One or two of those might've made their way onto recorded media perhaps?

(I've been taking the thread header in its broadest sense, you see.)

[Various Artist]

WFD’s link shows six covers by DM including Heroes which sounds intriguing.

It's... certainly 'different'. And quite good. I was recommended it by YouTube's algorithms a while back:

Dave and Dave were quite matey – according to Gahan in an interview I've heard, he and Bowie used to see each other on the school run. They had kids in the same school in New York (I think) perhaps 10-15 years back, so they'd hang out at the gates when picking them up, sort of thing.

[Various Artist]

Fill your raggle taggle boots here. (Note the same will also settle some other queries on this thread).

And yes, to second Sits' comment, that site is certainly a heck of a rabbit hole to go down.

The only Depeche cover I could pull to mind at first thought – prior to being reminded of that Heroes one – was a rather good version of U2's So Cruel. They did it for the AHK-Toong BAY-bi [sic] covermount CD for an issue of Q magazine a decade or so back, which had a whole raft of 'name' acts covering between them the entirety of Achtung Baby, in order, for what must've been its 20th anniversary. Bono apparently twisted the Mode boys' arm (in a friendly fashion) in order to get their old peers to do one:

"We first heard Achtung Baby working on Songs Of Faith And Devotion with Flood. It was the closest our bands ever got: U2 had become more electronic while Depeche Mode were working on a new rock vision. But there was never a rivalry. Bono used reverse psychology in his email, saying he totally understood why we'd say no. We just thought, Why not? So Cruel is Bono at his best, words-wise. And we couldn't tackle One - that would be almost sacrilegious" – Martin Gore

I see there's only half a dozen listed for DM on that Second Hand Songs site in total – and one of those is a stretch, as hilariously I see it's a 'cover' of John Cage's 4'33".


Though, to loop things back around to Joy Division, I've just found a video of Dave Gahan performing Love Will Tear Us Apart on stage at a benefit gig in 2011. His baritone is actually very well suited to it:

[Mumpo]

one of those is a stretch, as hilariously I see it's a 'cover' of John Cage's 4'33"

That was for the 4'33" covers album released by Mute last year

[Antepli Ejderha]

That's a magnificent website WFD, thanks for sharing that.

[Tony C]

My first thought here was Steely Dan but then I thought of Duke Ellington's 'East St Louis Toodle- O' from 'Pretzel Logic' which remains their only cover version in nearly fifty years if recording and is their only instrumental track in that time. And it's also arguably the least engaging piece of work they have ever committed to posterity.

[Jon]

Yes thinking about it, steely Dan is one that you would definitely expect. Only one cover in Donald fagen's solo output too, to my knowledge - ruby baby, off the nightfly. I don't think I've ever heard the drifters' original.

[Various Artist]

That was for the 4'33" covers album released by Mute last year

Belated thanks Mumpo, I hadn't come across that until now! Brilliantly barking.