Life Before Rock Band: The 9 Greatest Beatles Covers Ever

Posted in Rock. Written by Albert Costill on September 8th, 2009

We should all know that 9/9/09 means one thing…the release of The Beatles: Rock Band and the remastered release of their catalog!

Now that we all get to do our own “covers” of Beatles classics, I thought we would look back at some of the other acts that have covered the Fab Four over the years.

Now there have been A TON of Beatles covers, after all, it’s only a prerequisite to cover them if you’re in a band. There’s covers from legends (Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Johnny Cash) to “glam” rock (Bowie, Motley Crue) to jam bands (DMB, Phish, Black Crowes) to comedic renditions (Jim Carey, Tenacious D) to sampling (The Roots, Danger Mouse’s Jay-Z/Beatles mash up The Grey Album).

There’s something for everyone, which is why the Beatles are so huge and have never faded away.

With that here are the nine greatest Beatles covers, in chronological order, cause I’m OCD like that.

The Rolling Stones – “I Wanna Be Your Man” (1963)

John and Paul gave the Stones this song way back in 1963. In fact, this was actually the first song by the Stones to chart. The Beatles would release the track on their second album With The Beatles a couple weeks later.

Jimi Hendrix – “Day Tripper” (1967)

Jimi did a rocking version of this single, which was recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions, during his BBC Session.

Hendrix also covered “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967.There’s a famous story behind that cover. Sgt. Peppers had been released a couple of days earlier, on a Friday. Jimi listened to it all day Saturday and on Sunday night performed the opening number. To make it even cooler, Paul and George were awe struck in the crowd.

Joe Cocker – “With A Little Help From My Friends”

As The Beatles were beginning their nasty disbandment, Woodstock was encompassing all that peace and love that the band had been preaching. So it was only fitting that someone would give them a shout out. That would be Joe Cocker covering another tune from Sgt. Peppers. While it’s a great rendition, I think that I love Cocker’s version because it was the theme song for The Wonder Years.

Aerosmith (1978)/Michael Jackson (1988)/Soundgarden (1990)/Axl Rose & Bruce Springsteen (1994) – “Come Together”

In 1978 someone thought that it would be a great idea to make a movie based on the Sgt. Peppers album starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. The only good thing to come out of it was Aerosmith’s classic cover of this Abbey Road track.

Of course Michael Jackson covered the track as well for his 1988 flick Moonwalker, since he owned the rights to The Beatles catalog and all it was pretty easy to do.

Soundgarden put their spin on the track as well, which was released on their 1990 single for “Hands All Over”. They even recorded a solid rendition of “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey”, which I think took a lot of balls to cover, but if anyone could, it would defiantly be the mighty Soundgarden.

You may even enjoy Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen doing it at the 1994 Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame ceremony right before Lennon’s induction.

Elliott Smith – “Because” (1999)

This appeared on the American Beauty soundtrack and was a perfect choice for Elliott Smith to cover, since he had such a great voice. The Beatles were a huge influence on him and covered them quite a bit during his shows.

Stone Temple Pilots – “Revolution” (2001)

STP originally covered this for the John Lennon tribute on TNT in October of 2001 to a standing ovation. The band liked it so much that they recorded a studio version and released it as a single, with proceeds going to the families of victims of September 11, 2001. Scott does an amazing job of harnessing the vocals of both McCartney and Lennon; and the band got some help from Stephen Trask, the man behind Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Eddie Vedder – “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” (2001)