Legal Commentary

Many thanks to Dan and company for inviting me back. 

I'm planning to spend most of my time here this month blogging about law teaching and technology. But Marc DeGirolami's terrific post below inspired me to join the rebellion against "the ideology of novelty" in a different way -- by opening a thread on favorite cover songs.  A cover, as Wikipedia tells us, is "a new rendition (performance or recording) of a previously recorded, commercially released song." 

So, in the tradition of previous Sunday music blogs here and elsewhere in the legal blogosphere, I thought I'd celebrate the value of "derivative reaction" with a list of places where it has produced interesting and enjoyable music.  Please feel free to add examples and recommendations of your own in the comments (with extra points awarded for comments that take the derivation a step further and identify favorite covers of covers, reviews of review essays, or derivatives of derivatives (second derivatives) in calculus examples).

Here's my own randomly-generated list:

Peter Gabriel?s cover of Vampire Weekend?s ?Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa? (which mentions Peter Gabriel)

Husker Du?s cover of The Byrds? ?Eight Miles High?

The Byrds? cover of Pete Seeger?s ?Turn, Turn, Turn? (with lyrics from The Book of Ecclesiastes)

Pop Will Eat Itself?s cover of Shriekback?s ?Everything that Rises (Must Converge)?  (title borrowed from Flannery O?Connor)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer?s cover of Aaron Copeland?s ?Fanfare for the Common Man?

Jethro Tull?s cover (of sorts) of Bach?s ?Bouree in E minor?

Depeche Mode?s cover of Nat King Cole?s ?Route 66? (written by Bobby Troup)

Big Star?s cover of Nat King Cole?s ?Nature Boy? (originally by eden ahbez)

Elliott Smith?s cover of Big Star?s ?Thirteen"

Bad Astronaut?s cover of Elliott Smith?s ?Needle in the Hay?

Ed Kuepper?s cover of Johnny Cash?s ?Ring of Fire? (originally by June Cash and Merle Kilgore)

Johnny Cash?s cover of Nine Inch Nails? ?Hurt?

Nirvana?s cover of David Bowie?s ?The Man Who Sold the World?

Nirvana?s cover (with the Meat Puppets helping) of The Meat Puppets? ?Oh, Me?

Arlo Guthrie?s cover of Steve Goodman?s ?City of New Orleans?

Crosby, Stills, and Nash?s cover of Joni Mitchell?s ?Woodstock?

Fairport Convention?s version of the traditional song, ?Matty Groves?

Traffic?s version of the traditional song, ?John Barleycorn Must Die?

The Bangles? cover of Simon & Garfunkel?s ?Hazy Shade of Winter?

Squirrel Bait?s cover of Phil Ochs?s ?Tape from California?

Julian Cope?s cover of Thirteenth Floor Elevators? ?I?ve Got Levitation?

David Gilmour?s cover of Unicorn?s ?There?s No Way Out of Here?

The Soft Boys? cover of Syd Barrett?s ?Vegetable Man?

The Effervescent Elephants? cover of Pink Floyd?s ?Interstellar Overdrive?

Peter Jefferies? cover of Barbara Manning?s ?Scissors?

The Times? cover of the Teenage Filmstars? ?I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape?

Big Dipper?s cover of The Embarrassment?s ?Faith Healer?

Dick Gaughan?s cover of Leon Rosselson?s ?World Turned Upside Down?

Fall Out Boy?s cover of Bob Hope?s ?Thanks for the Memory? (with all the vowels removed)

And last but not least:

Gary Jules and Michael Andrews? cover of Tears for Fears? ?Mad World? ? which has inspired numerous covers of the cover version (including the recent one by Adam Lambert on ?American Idol?)

OK.  Did I cover everything?  Or have I left anything out?