Crazy cover songs I’m listening to tonight: Van Morrison and Roger Waters singing “Comfortably Numb” live. Eh. I’m not wild about this cover; it sounded exactly like the original album version of “Comfortably Numb” (nice) but with Van Morrison’s voice (just weird). Echoing Green covering Figures on a Beach’s “Accidentally 4th Street (Gloria).” Awful cover. I adore the original but this just sounded like something you’d hear at 11 p.m. in a gay dance club and then immediately forget. Quick story about Figures on a Beach: In college in the early 1990s, I was a vice president of the Campus Activities Board and the powers that be sent me to a national convention where bands and other acts performed in showcases, trying to get colleges to bring them to campus. On the trade show floor, where all the acts’ managers had booths, I was perusing a list of the talent that one company represented, and when I saw Figures on a Beach listed, I asked the manager about them, as I was rather a fan. He was quite shocked and said,”Really? You like them? They’re friends of mine and I kind of just put them on there for kicks!” Too bad they cost double the budget for our entire year. Boy Least Likely To singing George Michael’s “Faith.” Freaking weird! I don’t like the original version, and I almost skipped right past this cover, but the hypnotic combination of the smooth-voiced male and female singers harmonizing throughout, and an instrumental chorus of slide whistles, a xylophone, and one of those little wooden clacker things that makes a zzzzZZZZPPP! noise, sucked me in. “Mad World” by Gary Jules, originally Tears for Fears. AMAZING. I like it even better than the original. It’s just Mr. Jules and a muted piano. I think […]