Cover Version Quotes

So I did 'Something Happened on the Way to Heaven' and the original version is a ballad. The original Phil record is uptempo but we slowed it down and made it a ballad.

For me as a songwriter, I love when other people cover my songs.

I knew 'Hurt' way before Dad recorded it. In 1992, 'Downward Spiral' was one of my favorite albums.

I always loved that old song 'Banks of the Ohio' - it was always such a man's song, so I've always wanted to record it.

With any cover, I like to choose songs that affected me strongly already. So it's tough sometimes to take a song that you love so much and put your own spin on it because you get such a strong feeling from the original.

I don't have a favorite song that I've written. But I do have a favorite song: 'Always on My Mind,' the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.

I feel like, paying homage to an artist, it's better to do something that's inspired by them - a new work that's inspired by them - versus another person saying they redid your song.

The first record I was really into was the Drifters' 'When My Little Girl Is Smiling.'

George Benson's 'This Masquerade' is my favorite version of Leon Russell's blue gem.

I've actually done a cover of 'Train in Vain' by The Clash with Viv Albertine - which was originally written about her.

Strangely enough, when the Sugababes' 'Freak Like Me' went to number 1, which was built around my 'Are 'Friends' Electric' song, I had another song called 'Rip' go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week.

One of my favourite Donald Byrd tracks is 'Think Twice,' and I didn't want to sample it. I've always enjoyed when other people have sampled it, so I wanted to instead of making a beat with it or something like that, or freak the beat of whatever. I wanted to just recreate it in my own way, like how I heard it.

I love when people cover songs that are familiar but have been kind of forgotten about.

The Beatles did their best cover work on Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally' and music influenced by Richard, such as Larry Williams's 'Dizzy Miss Lizzie.'

I'll tell you what I really loved: the version of 'Somebody to Love' that was in 'Happy Feet.' That was fantastic.

I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them.

Usually, I cut songs by other people that are artists that I already love.

When someone picks up one of my songs and records it, I'm a flattered man, it's a blessing to me.

The opportunity to record the song came when Phil Collins' record label, Atlantic, was doing a tribute album to him and they asked all these different artists to do renditions of his songs.

Nobody considers a covers record an album.

"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," which I actually recorded on "Quality Street" because I don't think anyone has ever covered it before. You hear it every single Christmas, and it is a great record. That's by Wizzard. It is a really great record, but I don't think anyone's ever covered it before, so I had to go it doing it differently. It's quite different from how the original goes.

People love to play 'Baby, I Love Your Way' at their weddings. They even play it for births and deaths - whatever the occasion, it seems to fit. Over the years, it's been used in lots of movies, and it's been covered by other artists more than any of my songs. I've written a standard... which is pretty incredible to me.

You're never going to improve on a Michael Jackson song if you cover it.

My version of 'Fast Car' is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies.

You don't necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.