Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #15 to 11

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Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
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Oddly enough, the logo and goofy tagline has never changed since day one! My awesome friends made this shirt for my birthday one year. If I remember correctly, the blog had not even reached its first anniversary.

CanConCovers
From the get-go I've been inclined, if not unofficially mandated, to provide a Canadian bias to my blog coverage. As a Canadian blogger, I'm more than happy to draw attention to and trumpet homegrown talent (Danny Michel!) while apologizing for others (Nickelback). Canadian Content (AKA CanCon) is a unavoidable part of the Canadian radio and television landscape, requiring minimum percentages of Canadian produced content to air. Sometimes we grumble about it (i.e. lots of Loverboy airplay), but when done right it can be used to celebrate unheralded talent and hey, that's sort of what music blogging is all about, eh? I even started an irregularly updated and eventually abandoned feature called Canadian Cover Content to discuss cover songs of and/or by Canadian artists. Here are five of my favourite CanConCovers.

15. Captain Tractor - London Calling [originally by The Clash]
Hometown Edmonton boys Captain Tractor were great songwriters and impeccable musicians that were vastly underrated, except perhaps locally. Their 1999 album Celebrity Traffic Jam marks the first and only time my name shows up in an album's liner notes, which I think just happened for pre-ordering the disc (it was also my birthday present!).

14. The Bicycles - Cuddly Toy [originally by Harry Nilsson]
Toronto indie-rock band The Bicycles specialized in wonderful originals inspired by the bubblegum pop of yesteryear, but their debut The Good, The Bad and the Cuddly also featured this cover that was originally written by Nilsson for The Monkees. I did not realize until just now that five of the songs on that album including this one were recorded with Robert Sledge (of Ben Folds Five) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

13. Tok Tok Tok - The Weight [originally by The Band]
The Weight has been covered umpteen times and most artists don't really mess with it, but this groovy genre-bustin' cover by "acoustic soul" band Tok Tok Tok will leave you tapping your toes all day long.

12. Danny Michel - Gloomy Sunday [originally by Rezső Seress]
Gloomy Sunday is the so-called "Hungarian suicide song" that, according to urban legend, was banned from radio play after leading to a series of suicides. The lyrics tell of the author's recently deceased love ("little white flowers will never awaken you") and his desire to join her ("my heart and I have decided to end it all"). For the English version, most famously performed by Billie Holiday, a vaguely happy ending was tacked on to the otherwise depressing lyrics, revealing it was all a bad dream. More likely a marketing ploy than any real suicide epidemic, the legend was further enhanced by the fact that the original composer Rezső Seress did in fact commit suicide. I never did get around to writing and posting my planned "Gloomy Sunday in Canada" feature with CanConCovers of this song, but it was all an elaborate ruse to post this cover by Danny Michel anyway. Mind you, a remix by Winnipeg electronic artist Venetian Snares titled Öngyilkos Vasárnap is definitely worth seeking out.

11. Serena Ryder - It Doesn't Matter Anymore [originally by Paul Anka; recorded by Buddy Holly]
This piano/organ/vocal cover by Ontario singer Serena Ryder comes from If Your Memory Serves You Well, her cover album of songs penned by Canadian songwriters, in this case Paul Anka. It's a dramatic change from the upbeat original as performed by Buddy Holly in 1958 and is probably more indebted to Linda Ronstadt's country rendition from 1975.

Fong Songs 101 countdown concludes tomorrow with the coveted Top 10!

Yar

Yarrrr, billions of blue blisterin' barnacles, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day! Aye, we be celebratin' here at Fong Shanties with some cover song booty. Plunder away!


The Pointer Sisters - Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) [originally from Pirates of the Caribbean]
Before 2003, the idea of a movie based on a theme park ride seemed absurd. Arrrr, a couple billion doubloons in booty later, nobody be laughin' now. Except, of course, them Disney buccaneers... all the way to th' bank, yarrr! T'is be from the 1996 out o' print CD Disney's Music from the Park.

Captain Bogg & Salty - Part of Your World [originally from Disney's The Little Mermaid]
Aye, 'tis another Disney cover and Captain Bogg & Salty do a fine piratey rendition.

Captain Tractor - Drunken Sailor [Traditional]
Captain Tractor - The Last Saskatchewan Pirate [originally by The Arrogant Worms]
We be in fer a solid floggin' by the grog-swillin' CRTC if we don't be servin' up some more CanCon here, so here be both a traditional and a modern shanty from Edmonton balladeers Captain Tractor. Sailin' through the rough green waters of the North Saskatchewan river, Captain Tractor be renowned across the land for pillagin' them Arrogant Worms of their most popular shanty and havin' a bigger radio hit with it.

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE - Theme from Monkey Island [originally by Michael Land]
'Tis a jolly rockin' cover of the main theme from the uncle of all pirate video games, The Secret of Monkey Island as performed by PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, a Commodore 64 revival band from o'erseas in the land of the Danes. In celebration of today's festivities, the hearty folks at TellTale Games, who have done a superb job reviving Guybrush Threepwood & Co. from a long murky slumber, be giving away the first episode of The Tales of Monkey Island! Aye, put away those gold doubloons and sail on o'er to www.playlikeapirate.com for yer free game-- TODAY only! Speaking of which, the recently revamped special edition of The Secret of Monkey Island is also 50% off this weekend... only $4.99 o'er at Steam.

Three Years o' Fong Songs

We've reached a very special milestone here at Fong Songs. This is my 300th post, but more importantly today is the Three Year Anniversary of this blog's existence.

"Three-- Oh three-- it's a magic number. Oh yes it is, it's the magic number."

It's hard to believe that I've been at this for 3 years and it's been a blast. Initially blogging along for a readership of one (me), not a lot has really changed in my approach even as the visitor count very slowly grew, not that I'm immune to occasionally "chasing" readers in an effort to recapture conspicuous spikes in traffic.

Now that I really think about it, the Fong Songs experiment pre-dates the blog itself, initially started as a beta gmail account (since abandoned) with a shared password so that my friends and I (mostly me) could "post" unique or favourite songs with a little story to go with it. Eventually everyone lost interest as it was a pretty unwieldy process for sharing songs. In Summer 2005, I moved to Vancouver for 2 months to take a part-time course in 2D animation. Armed with my first post-switch Mac, I discovered a few things that summer that eventually led to the creation of Fong Songs as we now know it. Following a link on The Covers Project, I found myself completely drawn into the wonderful world of Coverville, a magical land where covers reigned supreme. I had never even heard of podcasting before and here was Brian Ibbott with already more than 100 shows under his belt. That's when I first got an inkling that I wasn't the only one obsessed with covers. Hours were spent crawling through the Coverville archives with delirious ears. I also stumbled upon Liza's Copy, Right? (dearly missed) and the concept of MP3 blogs in general. Oh, what I had been missing out on! I started wondering what it would take to start my own blog (answer: not much), since I was already notorious for usurping control of the music selections on car rides. Someone distinctly noted that there was an absurdly high ratio of cover songs to originals on my iPod, which had never really occurred to me. My first two posts very tellingly concerned the White Stripes, as Jack & Meg inevitably come up more often than any other subject. I noted in that first post that my covers collection was pushing 1200 and now that number is closer to 8400. There are songs I've been "meaning to post" for years now and still haven't gotten around to them. If and when this blog goes belly up, it certainly won't be for lack of material.

Since this began, the cover blog corner of the blogsphere has blossomed into what I like to refer to as a covers community. Cover Freak, Coverin' the Mouse, Cover Lay Down, Cover Me, Blowin' Your Cover, and probably more have all sprouted up in the last couple years. Having these cover colleagues has lead to some mutual guest posts, which I had never imagined when I started off, not to mention being invited to partake in a Cover Blog Roundtable on an episode of Coverville. Victory! So what does the future have in store for Fong Songs? From the get-go, my slapdash tagline has been "cover songs, my fav bands, and whatever the hell I feel like" and that pretty much sums up everything I write about. Mostly cover songs with the leeway to venture off into fanatical ravings about my favourite bands and I look to continue that tradition. Boyhowdy once wrote that I have an "incredible ability to compile cross-genre coverlists the likes of which [he's] never seen" in regards to my penchant for thematically linked cover songs and just a couple days ago, reader Tarty made the comment that "reading your blog is often like doing a paint-by-numbers project but on a time/space continuum". Those two quotes both warm my little ego and describe Fong Songs better than I can put it myself.


On to the covers!

The first time I heard of Three is a Magic Number was when my sister came back from a Captain Tractor show and raved about a new addition to the live show, "an awesome sing-along song about the 3 times table". Sure enough I was treated to this song at the next show I attended. The local Edmonton band, who we've seen innumerable times over the years, had recently gained a new member keyboard/accordionist Jason Kodie. this was the one song where he would take over lead vocal duties and teach the audience a basic math lesson. Admittedly Schoolhouse Rock! is a bit before my time, but I was aware of it mainly through that spot-on parody of I'm Just a Bill on The Simpsons. Soon after "discovering" Three is a Magic Number, I found the wonderful tribute album Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks at the library, a full album of Schoolhouse Rock! covers including Blind Melon's take on that very song.

Schoolhouse Rock - Three is a Magic Number
Here's the original, written and performed by Bob Dorough who composed the majority of the Schoolhouse Rock! tunes. This was actually the very first song ever recorded for Schoolhouse Rock!.

Bob Dorough - Three is a Magic Number
Bob Dorough revisits the classic song in this awesome live cover. In light of the fact that the crowd seems to be filled with some kids that "are bigger than the regular kids", he takes the song all the way up to 3 times 20, which makes the counting backwards part a lot trickier than you'd expect.

Blind Melon - Three is a Magic Number

The Jellydots - Three is a Magic Number
I love this rock cover from The Jellydots, a kids band started by music teacher Doug Snyder.

Elizabeth Mitchell - Three is a Magic Number
Embrace - Three is a Magic Number (live)
Wilco - Three is a Magic Number (live)
Jeff Buckley - Three is a Magic Number

Jack Johnson - The 3 R's
From the Curious George soundtrack, Jack Johnson expands on the original multiplication theme and teaches a lesson about The 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. It's funny, I remember a childhood jingle that included a 4th R: Recover. What ever happened to that?

De La Soul - Three is a Magic Number
A riff on Three is a Magic Number from hip hop group De La Soul's 1989 debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising. Recently, they're probably most well known for collaborating with the Gorillaz on the Grammy-winning Feel Good, Inc. This track also samples the drums from Led Zeppelin's The Crunge.

Canadian Cover Content #5: Grab Bag

Before I regale you (i.e. bore you to death) with long-winded tales of last weekend, here are some covers by and of Canadian artists. Completely by accident today, I stumbled upon this interview on a NYC-based webzine called PsychoPEDIA talking about (of all things) Edmonton's music scene. Shocking, I know. It was Shout Out Out Out Out (Out?)'s Jason Troock discussing local veggie eateries, the Edmonton mentality, and lying on a rubber beach in the middle of winter. They're probably one of our biggest exports in years, but their name reminds me of that Demetri Martin joke: Bana... Bananana… damn!

In that note, here's a country cover of Canadian childhood icon, Raffi's ubiquitous Bananaphone!
Rhonda Vincent - Bananaphone [originally by Raffi]
This is from the unexpectedly delightful album Country Goes Raffi with various country singers performing Raffi classics. Country music generally causes me to involuntarily twitch, but this... this is okay. Ha, where else can you hear Keith Urban singing Apples and Bananas? Um, that one's not a particular highlight.

The Bad Plus - Tom Sawyer [originally by Rush]
Experimental jazz group The Bad Plus walk a precarious line between a sweet cover and utter chaos. It's not for everyone's tastes and their original compositions can try one's patience, but they have a penchant for cover songs, which is what brought them to my attention in the first place a couple years ago. I find they work better as a cover group since the familiarities of the tune provide an anchor when they veer off into avante-garde territory. In any event, I'm lovin' this Rush cover from their latest release Prog.

Serena Ryder - Good Morning Starshine [originally from the musical Hair (MacDermot/Rado/Ragni)]
I don't know much about Serena Ryder, but her name seems to be cropping up a lot lately and there are long waits at the library to get her CDs. Her second album If Your Memory Serves You Well is mostly a collection of covers of Canadian songwriters plus a few originals. Probably indicative of The Simpsons' massive cultural impact on our generation (as if it wasn't readily apparent in the past couple weeks), when I hear this song I picture a gooby-looking Mr. Burns singing it with Leonard Nimoy, Mulder, Scully, and all of Springfield with Chewbacca going ARRRARARHHRRH in the background. Am I crazy?

Tin Foil Phoenix - Man of Constant Sorrow [originally by Dick Burnett]
This cover by Winnipeg band Tin Foil Phoenix has been getting a fair bit of airplay on our modern rock station here. It's doesn't match the heights of Osaka Popstar's Man of Constant Sorrow, but it's pretty decent.

Great Big Sea - Run Runaway [originally by Slade]
I was walking past when Great Big Sea was playing in Edmonton at our Capital Ex festival and two days later they were the headlining act at the Calgary folk fest. I couldn't help but wonder how they feel playing probably the same 4 or 5 songs from their 1997 Play album every night 'cause that's what the audience expects. I guess this could be said about any band, but it struck me particularly while watching them. Gotta give them credit for playing with an infectious level of enthusiasm all the time.

Captain Tractor - Lord of the Dance [originally by Sydney Carter with excerpts of Slade's Run Runaway]
Super underrated Edmonton band that deserve to have been way bigger than they were. Consistently great songwriting, impressive musicianship, awesome live shows, and the best damn cover of London Calling ever. I'm not biased just because they're local; these guys were great. Technically, I guess they're still around but the shows are sporadic and the line-up's slightly changed (not bad, just different). Bought the Farm is a brilliant album.

That is all for now.

Gypsy Punk

Lately I've been diggin' me some so-called "gypsy punk," a genre that previously I didn't even know existed. Yet over the past few months, I've independently stumbled upon two bands that could be each classified as such.

First, there's Gogol Bordello whose frontman Eugene Hütz is credited with coining the term "gypsy punk cabaret" to describe the band, which is a punk-infused Eastern European romp. The gala screening at the Edmonton Film Festival in October was a film called Wristcutters: A Love Story, an offbeat roadtrip comedy set in an alternate plane of existence where all the suicide victims end up and "everything's the same, just a little bit worse". It's quite a charming little gem of a movie with inspired performances from an eclectic cast that includes Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous), Tom Waits (!), Shannyn Sossamon, Shea Whigham, and Arrested Development's Will Arnett (as a self-proclaimed Messiah, no less). I found out after that some of the music on the soundtrack was done by Gogol Bordello, so I checked the library and we had a couple of their CDs. Shea Whigham's character Eugene, who electrocutes himself and dies mid-song at a gig, is no doubt inspired by Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz (who presumably did not electrocute himself and die mid-song at a gig).

Here are a couple of my favourite tracks:
Gogol Bordello - When The Trickster Starts A-Poking (Bordello Kind Of Guy)
Gogol Bordello - I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again
Gogol Bordello - Huliganjetta


The other band I've started listening to is Golem. Apparently gypsy punk can be further sub-categorized: Gogol Bordello could be considered Slavic gypsy punk while Golem is more along the lines of klezmer/Yiddish gypsy punk. I first took note of Golem when I heard their song Warsaw is Khelm, which features Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls sharing lead vocals.

Golem - Warsaw is Khelm (featuring Amanda Palmer)
Golem - Mazel
Golem - The Rent


I suspect my affinity for this genre goes back to my days as a huge fan of Captain Tractor, a local band whose music is usually Celtic folk-rock but they have a few songs that share the same "gypsy punk" vibe. For example, the conspicuously titled Gypsy Music, a 30-second throwaway track from their Bought The Farm album. Also, a cover of If I Were a Rich Man, which I posted long ago in the formative stages of this blog.

Captain Tractor - Gypsy Music
Captain Tractor - If I Were a Rich Man [originally by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick from Fiddler on the Roof]

MP3-Photo Travelogue: San Francisco

Some pics from my week in San Francisco with mp3 commentary:


Never the Bride - Going to California [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - San Francisco [originally by Scott McKenzie]

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R.A.M. - She's a Rainbow [originally by the Rolling Stones]

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Captain Tractor - Up the Hill
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - Fool on the Hill [originally by the Beatles]

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Gary Brooker - Old Brown Shoe [originally by the Beatles]

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Fantastic Plastic Machine - City Lights
Fantastic Plastic Machine - Allen Ginsberg

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Dread Zeppelin - Jailhouse Rock [originally by Elvis Presley]
Go Home Productions - Modern Rock [David Bowie vs. Queen mash-up]

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Ben Folds - Prison Food

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The Living End - Prisoner of Society (Reggae Version)
AC/DC - Jailbreak

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The Living End - Prisoner on the Inside [originally by Lynne Hamilton from the TV series Prison Cell Block H]

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Puffy AmiYumi - Usagi Channel

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Sarah McLachlan - Blackbird [originally by The Beatles]
Bobby McFerrin - Blackbird [orginally by the Beatles]

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The Raconteurs - Hands (XFM session)

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The Beach Boys - Crocodile Rock [originally by Elton John]

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Sam Roberts - Bridge to Nowhere

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The Toronto All-Star Big Band - American Patrol [originally by F. W. Meacham]

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Daft Punk - Digital Love

Canadian Cover Content #1

Hey, I'm back from San Francisco. More about that in a later post. I'm also testing out a new file-hosting site... let me know if that works okay.

Part of the fun of maintaining a blog is inventing on-going features that may or may not be actually on-going (see: Cover Riddles). Sunday night I caught the Tragically Hip in concert and I've been inspired to add another irregular feature whereby I highlight covers by and of Canadian artists. Our radio stations in Canada are required by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to play 35% Canadian content per week in the interests of promoting our uniquely Canadian culture. In other words, so our airwaves aren't hijacked by American pop stars. Usually on the classic rock station this means listening to an undue amount of Trooper, April Wine, Triumph, and Loverboy. Yikes. Of course, we have our homegrown classics like Neil Young, Rush, Joni Mitchell, The Tragically Hip, The Guess Who, and others. Fortunately, our recent exports like The New Pornographers, The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and many more indie rockers are starting to get wide recognition over the past few years. I'm under no such obligation to provide Canadian content, but I thought it'd be fun as a Canadian blogger to occasionally wave the maple leaf. So here it goes!


Sarah Polley - Courage [originally by the Tragically Hip]
Canadian actress Sarah Polley would probably be known best for her roles in Go and the recent Dawn of the Dead remake, but most Canadians would remember her best as the child star of Road to Avonlea. I had never even seen Road to Avonlea growing up, but even I knew who she was. Here she sings this haunting, 180° take on the Tragically Hip song. The cover comes from the soundtrack to Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, which Polley also starred.


The Tragically Hip - Springtime in Vienna
Not a cover, but at Sunday's gig The Hip played one of my favourite songs of theirs, which is from the Trouble at the Henhouse album.

Captain Tractor - The Log Driver's Waltz [originally by Kate and Anna McGarrigle]
You can hardly get much more Canadian than this. Local E-town folk rockers Captain Tractor plug into a little Canadian nostalgia with this cover. Any Canadian kid from the 80's is bound to remember the Log Driver's Waltz and the National Film Board animated short that accompanied it with the light-footed log driver dancing with a beaver and leaping over moose all the while "birling down" the river on a log... I distinctly remember this playing often on YTV in the commerical break between Dr. Who and Ninja Turtles. See the original NFB vignette here. Little bit of trivia: Kate McGarrigle's son is none other than singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

Barenaked Ladies - McDonald's Girl [originally by Dean Friedman]
I used to like the Barenaked Ladies back in the day (their first album Gordon was one of my first CDs ever). I haven't really liked much since their second album, but it's hard to believe they're still kickin' around. This early live cover (recorded for radio?) is an old favourite, although I didn't even know it was a cover for years. Some background on the song can be found on the original songwriter Dean Friedman's site.

Fates Warning - Closer to the Heart [originally by Rush]
This is a fairly straight forward cover of the Rush original. I used to hate Rush years ago. I'm not sure exactly when and how, but at some point I became a huge fan. I guess the Canadian Content indoctrination worked!

Until next time, people.

EDIT: Speaking of Canadian Content, I just noticed that Steve's most recent post over at Cover Freak features Canadian Danny Michel's cover of Davie Bowie's Young Americans. In last year's year-end post, I mentioned that this cover was the top cover that I had heard in 2005 (it's actually from Danny's 2004 all-Bowie cover album, Loving the Alien). Now I would not hesitate to say that it is among my top 5 covers ever. In addition, Danny Michel's original material is top-notch and I'd say he's is one of Canada's most underrated singer-songwriters. If you ever get a chance to see him live, he puts on a great show. So head on over to Cover Freak and download it while you can. He's also posted another one of my fav's: Gina Jeffries' amazing version of Creep, a great cover of the over-covered Radiohead song. Great post!

E-Town Pride

After the last post on Alberta's centennial, I was inspired to throw out some tunes with an Edmonton connection (a couple covers for good measure too).

The Arrogant Worms - We Are the Beaver
A couple years ago, the folk-comedy group The Arrogant Worms came to town to perform a show at the Winspear Centre with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. All dressed up in tuxes, they unleashed their comedic stylings on the crowd with an epic orchestral oomph. Being a long-time Worms fan, I was lucky enough to get to go to this concert, which was also recorded for a TV special on Bravo I think. In their words: the US is the eagle, Russia is the bear, and Canada.... well, we are the beaver.

Captain Tractor - London Calling [originally by The Clash]
My favourite Edmonton band who just had their 10th anniversary party gig a few months back. This Clash cover is off their 2nd East of Edson album and is my favourite version of the song.

Captain Tractor - The Last Saskatchewan Pirate
[originally by the Arrogant Worms]
At the Arrogant Worms symphonic gig, they were jokingly resentful of Captain Tractor's success with this cover.

The Arrogant Worms - The Last Saskatchewan Pirate
Another one accompanied by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Painting Daisies - Don't Leave Me Here
This all-girl bluesy rock band hails from mighty E-Town and won CBC's The Great Canadian Music Dream, a television series that was sort of like Canadian/American Idol but with real bands.

The Corb Lund Band - Mora (Blackberry)
The first time I heard of Corb Lund was when I was working at the downtown library and he was playing a gig in the library's basement theatre, which was odd since there aren't a lot of gigs down there. Now he's got a few albums out and his band was a double winner at the 2004 Canadian Country Music Association Awards. Plus, he got a Juno nomination in 2003 as well. He's about the closest thing to country that I enjoy.

King Letus - It's Still Rock and Roll to Me [originally by Billy Joel]
I found this at the library on an Alberta punk compilation.

Procol Harum - Conquistador (Live with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra)
This band is probably most famous for the oft-covered A Whiter Shade of Pale. In 1971, they recorded a concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at the Jubilee Auditorium.

U2 - With or Without You (Live from Edmonton)
On their 1997 PopMart tour, U2 played two shows at Commonwealth stadium here in Edmonton. I got to go to one of the shows, which is odd since this was years before I started actively going to concerts. This track was recorded at one of the shows and featured on their Please EP.

Pixies - In Heaven / Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
[originally from David Lynch's Eraserhead]
When the Pixies reunited last year, Edmonton was in the first wave of gigs they had played in 10 or more years. In fact, almost all of the shows were small venues across Western Canada, thus frustrating many fans south of the border and abroad. I was able to buy 4 tickets for an unbelievable price of $30 per ticket (scalpers were getting $200-300 from rabid fans!). I was right up there just couple metres away from the stage as the Pixies blew us away. And with some fancy DiscLive technology, we were able to purchase a "professional" bootleg of our show just minutes after it ended. Probably the best souvenir one could get from a concert... more bands should be doing this. Trivia: Pixies opened for U2 on the 1992 Zooropa tour.

addendum

Also... a couple Fiddler on the Roof covers:

Captain Tractor - If I Were a Rich Man
Nice accordion usage on this cover by local Celt-rockers, Captain Tractor.

The Magnetic Fields - If I Were a Rich Man
Another cover courtesy of Amazon.com's free downloads with singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt bringing his distinct musical sensibilities (think: ukulele) to a Fiddler on the Roof cover album. His main band is The Magnetic Fields, though he also releases music as The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes