Leave the memories and classics alone

The timeless Led Zeppelin. www.indiewire.com

After getting to listen to the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” by Miley Cyrus… it left me completely stupefied at how bad it was!

Violating an unwritten rule

To make things much worse, for her to even re-title the song to “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You”… is just adding insult to injury, especially to the original composer Anne Bredon, and to fans who grew up listening to the music of Led Zeppelin and are familiar with all of their songs. Even though Led Zeppelin only popularized this song,  “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You”  is strongly identified to and will always be associated with this legendary band for making it great.

It is an unwritten rule to NEVER change in any way the title of the song you are covering! It is taboo to do that. Doing so not only adds confusion to listeners to make them believe you may have composed the song, or that you even originally sang it. How much more misleading is that?

An error in judgment like this really tells me why some classics should never be covered, and if at all, they should just be left the way they are if their integrity could be compromised. The old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” is appropriate in scenarios like this one. Even if intentions are well intended, sometimes it is better to anticipate that your “cover” will not be accepted by those who have heard the original first, and specifically in the case of Miley Cyrus, she could very well possibly upset the surviving band members of Led Zeppelin with the end results of her effort.

It just puzzles me why–of all artists–Miley Cyrus chooses to cover a song, it had to be a song that Led Zeppelin had popularized? Even though “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” was originally written in the early 60s, it was the superior artistry of Led Zeppelin that had brought this then relatively unknown folk song into its heights of popularity, thus making it uniquely their own. What Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin did with this song was to realize its full potential in their re-imagining and it is because of that, that it transcended being categorized as simply as a cover. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” has become part of the band’s extensive list of popular songs which have become classics.

It is no wonder then how a legendary band like Led Zeppelin are almost like “folklore” in the history of Rock N’ Roll.

When you think of it, Led Zeppelin and Miley Cyrus are just miles apart in terms of artistry, and they do not even belong in the same category.

Mixed reception

The general poor critical reception of Miley’s cover of a classic song from Led Zeppelin  is just further proof that covering a song is such a tricky process, and what more if it is a classic you are attempting to do a cover of? Why so? It is as if you are trying to put yourself in the shoes of the artist who had first sung it and pretending to relate to the lyrics as though they were your own.

It should be said that some lyrics of these rock classics are truly representative of an artist’s own personal struggles and innermost feelings. These facts alone should sometimes make another stop and think if it is the type of song that is appropriate for you and which would even make complete sense for you to cover.

To further expound on this, it is like somebody reading a page of someone else’s diary and pretending it was of his/her own experiences. Certainly, these songs are an extension of the artist’s life–it is a story of what they have been through and who they have become.

And that is where it becomes even more complicated than it already is. It is because most, if not all classics we know of today, regardless from which decade of popular music they may have come from, truly represented an era or a movement in music. And more importantly, these classics are accurate representations of the artistry of these celebrated musicians, resilient performers, and famed recording artists.

The tendency is…

The tendency is that sometimes a young artist would cover a classic song assuming that the fans of the song they are covering would automatically jump on board to become theirs as well. But it does not always work that way. First of all, these songs that loyal fans have cherished even to their advanced ages are mementos and even “simple reminders” of their youth.

For some of them, they just can’t imagine someone else singing these songs from their time. It just proves that no matter how old you are now, being a music aficionado knows no age limit–it is something you are for the rest of your life.

A clear example of this is “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana.  When you even hear the title of that song, or better yet, when you hear it being played, you know immediately it is from the early 90s and you can only picture one person singing it, and that is none other than the late Kurt Cobain. And yet, even this classic wasn’t spared by Miley Cyrus a few years ago, when a video was uploaded on YouTube showing her performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in one of her concert tours abroad.

Kurt Cobain must have been “rolling in his grave” when his most well-known song was “butchered” in front of thousands of people. In all likelihood, if Kurt Cobain were still alive today, I believe that Miley Cyrus would not even dare touch Kurt Cobain’s timeless masterpiece.

My message is this: Only those who can do justice to these classics should be given the privilege of performing them in order to not desecrate the legacy of these music legends.

Leave the memories and classics alone, I say!