Music for a New Society: 13 great covers of John Cale songs

Leon Barton

When I wrote a piece to celebrate John Cale’s 80th brithday in 2022, a common reaction from many was, ‘I didn’t even know he was Welsh!’

Or, as my Icelandic friend Svava put it ‘Cale?! Cale is Welsh?? why the hell do you people go on about Tom Jones all the time when you’ve got Cale??’

It’s a fair question. In the piece I described him as Wales’ most influential musician, a claim I stand by with even greater certainty today (interestingly – and tellingly – those who disputed this claim were uniformly unable to name a Welsh musician who’s been more influential than him. Something I took as a case of ‘case closed, your Honour’)

Producer

Although largely famed as a musician and producer, I think Cale also has a pretty good claim to being Wales’ greatest ever songwriter. (Yep, I said it!)

So, with the great man having just turned 83, I thought it would be interesting to have a listen to some of his best songs, filtered through the medium of the cover version.

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Gun

I think – push comes to shove (an appropriate phrase for such a violent song) – this is probably my favourite cover of a Cale track.

Frontwoman Siouxsie Sioux once described her own songs as being about ‘damage…damaged lives, damaged souls, damaged relationships’, so it’s little wonder she chose one of Cale’s most damaged songs for the band’s 1987 album of covers ‘Through the looking glass’.

‘Blood on the windows and blood on the walls, blood on the ceiling and down in the halls’ – if anything, the Banshees version is even more menacing than Cale’s.

From the appropriately named ‘Fear’, which came out in 1974.

Yo La Tengo – Andalucia

On second thoughts, this might be my favourite. In contrast with ‘Gun’, it’s exquisite in it’s  delicacy. Underground heroes Yo La Tengo have been one of the best bands in the world for the past forty years or so. As good as their own songs are, they also have a decent ear for a cover; the album this is taken from, 1990’s ‘Fakebook’, contains eleven covers and five originals.

The original is on Cale’s classic Paris 1919 album, from 1973.

Mark Lanegan – Big White Cloud

When the late, great former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan died in 2022, Cale’s tribute was heartfelt; ‘I can’t process this. Mark Lanegan will always be etched in my heart – as he surely touched so many with his genuine self, no matter the cost, true to the end’

I saw Lanegan perform in a tent at V festival about 15 years ago, along with a handful of others (there were several more well known acts playing on the big stages at the same time). It was utterly mesmerising. The man barely moved but he didn’t need to, that voice was like honey mixed with gravel.

This version of a track from Cale’s solo debut Vintage Violence (1970) was released on the 2014 compilation ‘Has God seen my shadow?’

Lanegan also recorded Cale’s track ‘Not the loving kind’ in 2013 but this one works better for me.

Fontaines DC – The black angels death song

I wanted to include some Velvet Underground songs as, in the words of Cale’s first wife, the fashion designer Betsey Johnson, ‘the words and music were Lou (Reed) but the sound of the Velvet Underground was John’.

One of only two tracks on debut ‘the Velvet Underground and Nico’ to give Cale a writing credit (drummer Moe Tucker and guitarist Sterling Morrison also get a credit for album closer ‘European Son’) the music is dominated by the piercing sound of John Cale’s electric viola.

Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten’s Dublin drawl works a treat here with Reed’s words on the band’s contribution to the 2021 album ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground & Nico’.

 Jennifer Warnes – Empty bottles

Around fifteen years before she was having the time of her life alongside Bill Medley on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, in 1972 Warnes was emptying bottles alongside Cale on her third album ‘Jennifer’, which he produced.

He also provided Warnes with this charming country groover, a testament to the man’s range. So, as he wrote it for her and didn’t actually record it himself I guess it technically doesn’t qualify as a cover. But it’s great, so I’m including it anyway!

Manic Street Preachers – Endless plain of fortune

To call Manics frontman James Dean Bradfield a Cale fan is something of an understatement; ‘As a solo artist he’s nearly unsurpassable to me’ so it’s no surprise Bradfield’s band covered a Cale song.

Bradfield first performed an intimate acoustic take of this epic Cale track from the Paris 1919 album during a radio session in 2004 and in 2011 the full band (and a string section)performed it for a concert on BBC Radio Wales.

A studio version appeared later in 2011 on Q Magazine’s promo 12″ version of National Treasures, before getting a wider release in 2022 and the Sleeping in Plastic digital covers collection.

Billy Bragg – Fear is a man’s best friend

‘If you want to grab people’s attention, show them you’re scared’ Cale once said, when talking about this song, the lead track from his Fear album.

Bragg’s solo version works remarkably well. The ‘Bard of Barking’ recorded it for a session for John Peel’s radio 1 show in July 1983, later released on ‘The Peel Sessions Album’ in 1991.

Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante also did a solo version at the band’s City of Manchester stadium in 2004, which is a strange and brave choice to play to a crowd of tens of thousands.

‘We’re already dead but not yet in the ground. Come on, shake my helping hand, I’ll show you around’

Not really a stadium rock song…

The Walkabouts – Buffalo ballet

Cale’s lyrics tend to fall into three main categories; the terror-filled ones, the romantic ones and the historic ones

This is one of Cale’s best historical lyrics and allied to the gorgeous melodies, makes it one of his most beautiful songs

Seattle band The Walkabouts recorded this excellent version for their 1993 covers album ‘Satisfied Mind’.

Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell – You know more than I do

Fear is maybe Cale’s best album, thanks largely to it’s range. From the terror of ‘Gun’ and ‘Fear is a man’s best friend’ to the beauty of ‘Buffalo ballet’ and this one.

Iron & Wine (Sam Beam) and Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell are two of American indie folks most celebrated modern practitioners and in 2015 the duo paid tribute to some of their influences with the covers album ‘Sing into my mouth’, from which this is taken.

Nirvana – Here she comes now

It took a couple of decades but by the Nineties the Velvets influence was everywhere.  Perhaps the biggest and best band to emerge in that era covered this song from second Velvet’s album ‘White Light White Heat’ (writing credit going to the whole band)

Nirvana recorded it in the first week of April 1990, their first time working with legendary producer Butch Vig. It was their last recording to feature drummer Chad Channing, as Dave Grohl joined the band a few weeks later.

Most of the songs they recorded that week were re-recorded with Vig (and Grohl) for their game-changing Nevermind album, released the following year. Only the drum-less ‘Polly’ made the cut.

As for ‘Here she comes now’, it came out on the compilation album ‘Heaven & Hell: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground’ and as a split single with the Melvins, who covered the Velvets song ‘Venus in Furs’.

Superchunk – Childs Christmas in Wales

Cale’s classic, based on Dylan Thomas’ famous short story, was given a grunge makeover by North Carolina’s Superchunk in 2011.

Spiritualized – Why don’t you smile now?

An somewhat obscure one, this fantastic song was the first ever collaboration between Cale and Lou Reed (Reed’s fellow songwriters at Pickwick Records Terry Phillips and Jerry Vance also get a credit)

It came out as the only release on a Pickwick subsidiary called Round Records, by The All Night Workers (Reed’s friends Otis Smith, Mike Esposito, and Lloyd Baskin, whose soulful singing gives it a Righteous Brothers/Box Tops feel) and was released in 1965 as the B-side of ‘Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket’. It wasn’t a hit and turned out to be the band’s only release.

Why Don’t You Smile was covered a year later by Downliners Sect and this version by Spiritualized is from 1991.

Mercury Rev – I keep a close watch

One of Cale’s most beautiful songs (from 1975’s ‘Helen of Troy’), given a delicate, dreamy take by New York’s Mercury Rev on the CD of their 2002 single ‘Little Rhymes’