The Cover Changes The Meaning / Songs G To M

G

• "Georgia on My Mind" by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael: Gorrell originally wrote the lyrics for Georgia Carmichael, sister of Hoagy Carmichael. However, Georgia native Ray Charles, finding the lyrics to be ambiguous enough to refer to the state as well, dedicated his performance of the song (the B-side of his hit single "What'd I Say?") to the state. "Georgia on My Mind" became the Georgia state song in 1979, mostly because of Charles' cover.
• "Get Away With Murder" by Jeffree Star: The original version is clearly using metaphors. The Difference's cover sounds far more literal and is more like a Murder Ballad.
• "Get It On The Long Hard Road," from the Kleptones' mashup album ''24 Hours'', takes the playful Intercourse with You lyrics from T.Rex's song "Get It On, Bang a Gong" and makes them creepy and possessive... using the original vocals. The only alteration is the music that plays behind them.
• "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk is an upbeat techno song about going to a dance club to... well. UK indie band Daughter's cover, however, slows down the tempo and swaps the gender of the lead to tell the same story from the point of view of the drunk (and possibly drugged) girl as she is picked up in the club.
• "Get Up" by Nate Dogg: Dance-punk band !!!'s cover of this party jam seems to be relatively straightforward...until about three minutes into the song, when it suddenly becomes clear that the band is interpreting the line "Shake it baby / Driving me crazy" literally. The remaining 6 minutes are thus comprised of sonic insanity.
• "Gimme More" by Britney Spears: Machinae Supremacy has a cover that sounds more like a mockery of Britney Spears herself.
• "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones: Angélique Kidjo added in African choral vocals and changed the instrumentation to transform a song about the apocalypse and Vietnam into a Lyrical Dissonance filled song about the situation in some parts of Africa.
  • The music video makes the song a denunciation of homelessness and its causes.
• The Gourds' commonly misattributed cover of "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Dogg turns the gangsta rap song about partying and drugs to a folk tune, complete with a long fiddle solo after the first two verses. It's still about drinking and getting high, but the whole thing has a Lighter and Softer feel than the original.
• "The Girl From Ipanema", via Translated Cover Version. The original Portuguese version was more of a praise to said girl. The English version (you know the one) is all about the Unrequited Love.
• "Girl from the North Country" by Bob Dylan. Pete Townshend's electro-pop cover of the folk ballad alters two lines in the song's final verse, changing it from a song about a man wondering how his old flame is doing these days, to a song about a man wondering if his old flame is still alive after a devastating nuclear war.
• "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was originated by Robert Hazard and covered multiple times:
  • By changing a few words, and the gender of the singer from male to female, Cyndi Lauper turned "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" into a bouncy feminist pop anthem.
  • Greg Laswell then turned it from a giggly pop song into a Break the Cutie ballad.
  • Emilie Autumn's cover puts in self-destructive undertones.
• "Gloria" by Van Morrison: Patti Smith's cover from Horses contains just barely enough elements of the original song to qualify as a cover, as she nearly triples its length, averts The Cover Changes the Gender with gratuitous amounts of Les Yay, and conflates the song with the hymn of the same name and her personal disillusionment with organized religion, to the point that the song's refrain is "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine".
• "Gloria" as originally written in Italian by Umberto Tozzi is a mushy, erotic, slightly obsessive ode to a nearly unattainable woman. Adding Covered Up and an extreme case of Lost in Translation, Laura Branigan's In Name Only cover is a scornful hatchet job directed at a lonely, obsessively promiscuous frenemy of the singer who may have some serious mental issues. Originally it was planned to be a more literal translation (at one point Branigan and her producers considered changing it to "Mario"), but it was ultimately decided to keep just the tune and go in a different direction from there.
• The Godfather love theme: The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra transforms it from a love theme into a song that seems to be about a fast-paced chase, possibly running away from madness. They do this by changing the instrumental portions and discarding the original lyrics replacing them with barely understandable Engrish.
• "God's Gonna Cut You Down," also known as "Run On," is a traditional folk song that has been recorded by several artists. Perhaps the best-known recent examples are Johnny Cash and Moby. Cash's version almost sounds like it's being sung by an Old West gunslinger about to clean up town. Moby's version is more upbeat and gospel-inspired.
• The Office (US) has one episode where Michael Scott rewrites Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger", which is about leaving after a one night stand, to be a farewell song. Albeit one that eventually has moments to make Michael revel in how Toby is leaving.
• "Good Times, Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin is about growing up and learning how to be a man. Sung by the all-female Lez Zeppelin, it could be from the point of view of a trans man learning how to deal with his new identity or a young gay woman who's been abandoned by her bisexual lover.
• "Go West" by Village People: The Pet Shop Boys' cover turned an idealistic song about San Francisco as a utopia for the gay rights movement into a somewhat sad and nostalgic song about the hopeless optimism of the movement in the aftermath of AIDS. The orchestral instrumentation, allegedly not intentionally based on the Soviet anthem, and the music video also give a nod to an entirely different context: former Soviet citizens having the ability to literally "go West" to freedom after the fall of Communism. This context also has a layer of hopeless optimism.
• "The Guns of Brixton" by The Clash: Nouvelle Vague's cover turns the bouncy gangster tune into a deeply creepy (yet sexy) cabaret number about life in a fascist dystopia.

H

• "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen has had several covers that all have different tones. Cohen's version is dispassionate. John Cale's version is sincere. Jeff Buckley's version is sexy. Guy Garvey's version is more regal. And so on and so forth. Of course, since the original version of the song has 80 verses, it's fairly easy to pick and choose tone - though most covers follow John Cale's example.
  • Caleb Hyles's collaboration cover comes off as five different men dealing with breakups in different ways.
• "Happy Together": Filter's version changes the normally cute song about puppy love to a twisted tune about a Yandere Stalker with a Crush.
• "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" as sung by Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis is a wistful hope that even though Christmas was hard this year, maybe next year will be better. Frank Sinatra found this too depressing to sing for a Christmas album and asked for several lyric changes, notably switching all mentions of "next year" to "this year," and changing "Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow," to "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough."
• "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" by The Crystals. The original was sung in a way that is easily interpreted as sincere. This sincerity was apparently not the intent of the writers — Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote it in response to finding out that Little Eva (who was moonlighting as their babysitter at the time) had an abusive boyfriend. Grizzly Bear then covered the song and made it haunting and tragic. Also, Grizzly Bear's lead singer is male.
• "Heartbreak Hotel": Elvis Presley's original is a rather tongue-in-cheek, bluesy number about feeling lonely and abandoned. John Cale's version relocates the hotel to a blasted hellscape of eternal damnation.
• "Heigh Ho" from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Tom Waits' cover, recorded for the multi-artist Disney Cover Album Stay Awake and later made available on his own release Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, turns it from a chipper work song into something decidedly more depressing, if not nightmarish. The tempo is slowed to a crawl, and the arrangement features the clanking percussion and minimal, dissonant instrumentation his later material is known for, along with some ominous subterranean reverb. Kind of puts the idea of dwarves putting in hours of back-breaking potentially deadly labor in a mine for no clear reason in a different light. At least one reviewer commented that it sounded like "noises from Gacy's basement."
• "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a Villain Song about a religious man obsessing over a woman. Female covers such as Annapantsu's cover tweak the meaning. Not only is the singer freaking out over their "sinful" lustful feelings, but also their homosexual feelings. On top of the gayngst, there are undertones of Armoured Closet Gay as well.
• "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck turned it into a Duck Season, Rabbit Season argument. (Bugs & Friends Sing the Beatles did this to a number of songs.)

  Daffy: I say goodbye, and you say hello.
  Bugs: Hello, hello, I don't know why you say goodbye,
  Daffy: I say hello!

• "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles: Ghost's cover changes the key from major to minor and the meaning from a happy celebration of spring to a song about the coming of The Antichrist ("Here comes the Son").
• "'Heroes'" by David Bowie: The original was mildly disinterested and cynical about the world and its capacity for heroism. When Peter Gabriel gets ahold of it, it's a The Ruins I Caused shot in lyrical form.
  • In 2020, a Spanish-language cover was released amid the Covid-19 pandemic. This version, brighter and more optimistic, suggests that if you can't feel like a hero all the time, try being one for just one day and maybe you'll help someone else be a hero tomorrow.
• "Hey Joe", a tune of dubious authorship but famously recorded by The Leaves and especially Jimi Hendrix. Patti Smith's cover adds a spoken word intro about the Symbionese Liberation Army's 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst. In addition, the lyrics themselves cast Hearst as the titular "Joe."
  • The version by Richard Thompson makes the listener realise that the original song is basically a traditional murder ballad.
• "Hey Ya" by OutKast:
  • Obadiah Parker took the upbeat original and cut through the Lyrical Dissonance to spotlight the message about a troubled relationship in all its introspective glory.
  • Scrubs had Ted do an acoustic version of the song with a guitar (actually sung by Sam Lloyd) at the Janitor's wedding in the Bahamas while J.D. monologued about relationships. He managed to turn it into a genuinely sweet and sentimental love ballad.
• "Highwayman," originally by Jimmy Webb and covered often, is about the four reincarnations of the same man: first hanged for being the titular highwayman, then dying doing dangerous work as a sailor and building the Hoover Dam, and finally swearing that he will return as a starship captain someday, or "perhaps I may become a highwayman again, or I will simply be a single drop of rain."
  • Covered by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson (who called their supergroup The Highwaymen after the song), it becomes a song about four different men throughout history, and the different dangerous, adventurous lives they lead.
  • "Highwomen" reworks the Highwaymen's version about the life and death of four different women throughout history: a mother who died trying to get her children over the US border from Honduras, a woman ("a healer") hanged at the Salem Witch Trials, a Freedom Rider killed in a Ku Klux Clan attack, and a preacher-woman martyred near the Colorado River.
• Pat Benatar actually was the first artist to release "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", but her performance suggests a much different interpretation than the songwriter Eddie Schwartz intended. He envisioned it as a Break-Up Song, with the narrator daring their ex to try to hurt them one last time - "hit me with your best shot" - but Pat Benetar's performance suggests that instead she's taking the initiative and flirting with a bad boy by suggesting that, unlike those other women whose hearts he broke, she isn't going to be hurt so easily.
• "His World" by Zebra Head Band: Originally, it was a fast-paced Punk Rap song with rebellious and carefree lyrics that perfectly fit Sonic. Crush 40's cover was slower-paced and had a more epic feel to it. Its lyrics were mysterious and weighty and more befit Shadow.
• "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler is a silly, peppy disco song about waiting for a Knight in Shining Armor.
  • Frou Frou's cover turns it into a cynical song that seems to be questioning if there are any heroes left in the world.
  • The Fairy Godmother's version in Shrek 2 double subverts it. It's the main villain singing a song about heroes coming to the rescue, while unbeknownst to her heroes really are coming to the rescue.
  • Christina Grimmie's version for the Humane Society, stripped down to a slow piano with violin accompanying it, is a mournful cry for rescue on behalf of the animals facing euthanization while waiting to be adopted.
  • Ella Mae Bowen's cover has a similar softer and slower approach and had its meaning changed twice over when it was memorably featured in a Dancing with the Stars routine about Chris Kyle.
  • Whitney Avalon and Hildegard Von Blingin's medieval-inspired cover ends with the two female leads becoming the heroes they were holding out for. At the end of the video, they work together to climb a mountain and slay the dragon at the top.
• "Horse With No Name" by America, a soft folk-rock song with Ice-Cream Koan lyrics that tries to capture the feeling of being in a hot, dry desert; season 4 of Bojack Horseman features a cover of the song by Patrick Carney with vocals by Michelle Branch, turning the song into a much angstier, more contemplative rock song that make the original lyrics sound like a metaphor for the journey of life and all the hardships that come with it.
• "Honey Honey" by ABBA: The version featured in Mamma Mia! cuts out the male vocals and changes every use of "you" to "he", transforming it from a song about being aroused to Sophie reading aloud from her mother's diary entries about her flings with Sophie's three possible fathers.
• Hot In Herre: Jenny Owen Youngs took an Intercourse with You hip hop song and turned it into a rather romantic and cheery pop-rock song.
• The original "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thorton is about a man that the singer doesn't want to affiliate with anymore. Elvis Presley takes the title literally and reinterprets it about a literal hound dog that doesn't act like he wants.
• "House of the Rising Sun":
  • The Animals' cover of this folk song (arguably the most famous version of that song) changed the lyrics so that the narrator is male and struggling with gambling and addiction, casting the titular house as a "gambling house." It was originally a song about a woman with tremendous money woes who turned to prostitution, making the house a very different house indeed. Most covers of the song after 1964 hearken back to The Animals' version leaving the original all but lost.
  • The Blind Boys of Alabama took the song and set the lyrics of "Amazing Grace" to it.
    • On one I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Barry Cryer did the same, but with both songs switched around.
  • Five Finger Death Punch change all references of "New Orleans" to "Sin City". The house in their version is considered to be a metaphor for Hell.
  • Dolly Parton's cover not only returned the female perspective to the song but added new lyrics that emphasized the song's true meaning.
  • Johnny Hallyday's cover cast the titular house as a prison where the narrator is going to spend the rest of his life. He spends the song apologizing to his mother and fiancée for letting them down, warning mothers against letting their sons fall into crime, and telling his fiancée to move on without him.
• "Hungry Like The Wolf" by Duran Duran:
  • Reel Big Fish turns it from an Intercourse with You song into a surprisingly Stalkerish Ska song through the magic of Lyrical Dissonance, a jazzy scat section, and a crazy Motor Mouth section of singing. The whole effect makes it seem like a happy murderous Schizophrenic wants to eat you.
  • Hidden Citizen's cover makes it sound like a Murder Ballad from the POV of a monster or stalker.
• "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails: The original song and Johnny Cash's cover showcase similar but very different messages. The original NIN version is an introspective ode to self-loathing, alienation, and drug addiction. Cash's version made it into a reflective contemplation on his whole life, looking back at what he had gained, and more importantly what he had lost. Instead of a young guy in his late 20s writing down his depression, it's an old man looking back at his life that was soon to end. Trent Reznor, the original writer, expressed himself as having goosebumps and tears when he heard the Cash version and feeling like he'd "lost a girlfriend because he'd lost the song" to Cash's version.

I

• "I Am Woman": The Doug Anthony All Stars' baritone cover lends a whole new meaning to the Helen Reddy feminist anthem.
• "I Don't Wanna Know" by Mario Winan is a song about a guy discovering his girlfriend is cheating on him and coming to terms with it. The cover performed by Florence + the Machine is a song about a girl coming to terms with her boyfriend being homosexual (giving the lyrics "if you're playing me, keep it on the low" a delightful double meaning).
• "I Wish I Was Single Again" is a traditional folk song that's usually performed as a humorous Misogyny Song. The Fiery Furnaces covered it under the alternate title "Single Again" - their version changes the female pronouns to male and uses a dissonant electronic arrangement of the music, making it seem like the female narrator keeps getting into genuinely traumatic abusive relationships.
• "If I Had A Hammer" is a fun ditty about a man saying he wants to use a hammer, a bell, and a song to spread happiness. The Italian version "Datemi Un Martello" is a fun ditty about a woman wanting to take her hammer and bludgeon the people she doesn't like (plus the telephone before her parents tell her to go home).
• The musical Gypsy features the song "If Mama Was Married," in which main characters Dainty June and Louise fantasize about their mother (already thrice-divorced) giving up her dreams of show business and settling down into happy domesticity, which would give the girls the freedom they crave. One particular pair of performers, though, give it a harsh veneer of Reality Subtext: namely, Lorna Luft and Liza Minnelli. To those who don't know, Luft and Minnelli are the daughters of Judy Garland, who suffered through five marriages rife with abuse, financial woes, and Garland's own mental health problems, including well-known addictions to drugs and alcohol. As such, Luft and Minnelli's version (especially because they sing it as grown women) comes across as a genuine wish for Garland's health and stability, which she ultimately never found before dying of a drug overdose at only forty-seven. Even worse is the fact that, as the link shows, Garland herself taught the girls the song and had them perform it at Hollywood parties, suggesting that she too was moved by its message.
• "I Fought the Law" by Bobby Fuller:
  • The Dead Kennedys "covered" it in the loosest possible sense - about half the lyrics were altered to make it into a Protest Song about the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, and the song's refrain becomes "I fought the law, and I won."
  • Bell X1 covered "I Fought The Law" as an acoustic country song and turned it into a quiet little tale of the consequences of misspent youth. It turns out there's a really pretty melody in there.
• "I Got Your Money": Say Anything...'s cover of the ODB original made it extraordinarily sarcastic.
• "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Gladys Knight and the Pips is hurt, but almost puzzled and wondering if it's true.
  • Marvin Gaye's version seems more heartbroken.
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival's version, with the instrumentation almost thundering, sounds wrathful about the situation.
• "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry:
  • Ukrainian singer Ann Kovtun's cover sounds less like a girl exploring her sexuality and more like a girl genuinely conflicted (and possibly in denial) about her sexuality.
  • Scottish indie band Travis totally change the meaning with their cover, turning a Les Yay-infested hit single into a folk-tinged ballad about a gay man questioning his sexuality. The versions by Attack!Attack! and Max Vernon both have similar subject matter.
  • Israeli singer Ivry Lider, who is in fact gay, did a very melancholic cover.
  • Paul McDermott changed the meaning in two different ways when he sang it on Good News Week. First, the monologue he led into the song with, and the sad, piano-y feel made the viewer think it was a melancholic reflection of the year. After the first chorus and the joke was made, it was turned into a kickass song of kickassery.
  • William Fitzsimmons' cover turns it into a song about a straight guy who might be cheating on his girlfriend.
  • Cobra Starship turned it into "I Kissed a Boy" about a guy and his friends just trying to start a fight for fun.
• "I Know Him So Well" by Chance Calloway and AJ Rafael upends the original POV from Chess by taking a song that's essentially two women pining over the same undeserving man and turning it into a melancholic meditation on the ending of a romance between two men. The music video accentuates this.
• "If You Could Read My Mind", by Gordon Lightfoot, is a song about a breakup or a divorce. The cover by the house music collective Stars on 54 turned the lyrics on its head to a point of view of a woman taking things back and going for a night on the town with friends after being scorned.
• "Iko Iko" by The Dixie Cups, and most covers (and the Covered Up original "Jok-a-Mo" by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford) is about a conflict between two rival Mardi Gras tribes. "Iko Iko (My Bestie)" by Justin Wellington is about partying in the Solomon Islands.
• "I'll Be Home For Christmas": The original had a melancholy soundtrack and was meant to echo the feelings of troops overseas who had hoped the war would be done in time for Christmas. More recent versions have replaced the original melancholy music with upbeat music and the most melancholy lyric is sung almost triumphantly. That said, a number of modern versions have returned the troops feel by adding Christmas messages from (or at least in Josh Groban's version, to) soldiers stationed overseas.
• "I'm Just Ken" from Barbie. A couple of parodies reimagine the song.
  • "I'm Just Pete" by Pete Davidson is about Pete talking about how awesome he is despite his many flaws and shortcomings
  • "I'm Just Ten" is about Jordan Love trying to get out of Aaron Rodgers's shadow and please Packers fans.
• "Imagine" by John Lennon:
  • A Perfect Circle changed it from an upbeat ode to idealism to a cynical ode against totalitarianism.
  • Neil Young's version at the post-9/11 benefit concert, "Concert For America", in 2001, amended the line "Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can" to "I wonder if I can", adding some self-doubt to the song.
• "I'm Your Boogie Man" by KC and the Sunshine Band: The original was an Intercourse with You song. The cover by Rob Zombie is unnerving as all heck.
• "I Put A Spell On You" was originally just an average blues ballad about a man reminding his cheating lover of their bond and demanding that she be faithful. But during a drunken studio session, Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded a weird, wild rendition, which he later turned into a "shock rock" theatrical act with horror visuals; this version seemed to imply a real supernatural meaning to the lyrics and became a Halloween standard. The rendition in the movie Hocus Pocus takes the literalism even further: with a handful of lyric changes, it's sung by an actual witch as she casts a spell on a crowd to make them dance to death.
• "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath: The original version is about a time traveler killing those he attempted to save after being turned into a statue and slowly going insane. The Cardigans' version turned it into... well, the same, but with a lot of added Lyrical Dissonance.
• "I should be so lucky" by Kylie Minogue: The Northern Kings' addition of a telephone, some heavy breathing, and a very slow and doomy growled vocal style turn the song into the ultimate creepy stalker tune.
• "It's a bore!" from Gigi is a song about how jaded Gaston has become with the pleasures of life. However, in the 2015 Broadway revival, it becomes a song about how Gaston is more interested in progress and inventions than in superficial pleasures. This required switching the parts in the second verse, so that Gaston is the one singing the praises of the Eiffel Tower, and his uncle declaring it a bore.
• "It's The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M. is a song whose humor is extremely subdued, being allegorical for the band's views on the Cold War. It was put in the hands of upbeat Canadian East Coast folksters Great Big Sea, sped up (requiring Motor Mouth lyrics, given the sheer obtuseness of them), and turned into a great happy tune about meeting the end of the world with a smile on your face.
• "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls: After the lead singer Chrissy Amphlett died from breast cancer, this song was used in a PSA where various women who had survived or were suffering from the same condition sang the lyrics in a somber tone. As a result, the lyrics "When I think about you, I touch myself" changed from simply being about masturbation to being about how Chrissy's death reminded the singers to check for lumps.
• "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles: Sparks' cover is performed as slow and smooth Philadelphia Soul, making the song much more mature and heartfelt than the teen love Pop of the original.
  • Other covers of this song, from the movie Across the Universe (2007) and the TV show Glee, are listed below in the "Serial Reinterpreters" folder.
• "I'll be there", the ending theme to Saber Marionette J, is a Silly Love Song about how the singer will always be there for a boy if he admits his feelings. The version used in the final credits of the ova sequel Saber Marionette J Again is a bittersweet song about waiting for a loved one who might not come back. Both versions are sung by Megumi Hayashibara (who was also one of the main stars in the anime), but while she uses her normal singing voice for the normal version, in the other one she uses a very similar voice to the one she uses for Lime.
• "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor: The perennial disco hit was originally a triumphant feminist anthem about moving on from a bad relationship. When covered by Cake, it becomes a last quavering cry of defiance from a man about to fall back into one. (They even add a Precision F-Strike which Gaynor hated.)

J

• "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley: John Mellencamp did two covers of this song. The original was a silly show tune with a somewhat notorious moment of (intentional?) Ho Yay, but Mellencamp recasts the song in a minor key with mostly acoustic instruments to make a song that sounds like a hot prison yard with absolutely nothing for the inmates to do except party half-heartedly.
• "Jenny" by Studio Killers: Lily Sevin's cover turns a song about a woman unapologetically wanting to date her best friend into a gayngst filled ballad about unrequited love and falling for a straight girl.
• "Jerk from Johannesburg" by Kinky Friedman: Finnish country-rock band Freud, Marx, Engels & Jung made a Finnish language cover "Buuri Johannesburgista" (Boer from Johannesburg) as a VERY satirical take on Apartheid system. Unfortunately, too many people understood it as a white power anthem...
• "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield is a pop-rock piece about the male singer struggling with his unrequited feelings for his best friend's girlfriend. Mary Lambert's cover adds a layer of Gayngst, with the heartfelt piano instrumental and female vocals making it sound more like a woman mourning what she can never have due to an Incompatible Orientation.
• "Johnny Are You Queer?". Josie Cotton's version is about a girl who is concerned that her boyfriend might not be interested in her because he's gay. Screeching Weasel's version has a male singer similarly worried about the sexuality of his male love interest. Both versions are ridiculously catchy.
• "Johnny B" by The Hooters is about a bad relationship. Down Low reworked it into a song about a thief lamenting his wasted life.
• Dolly Parton's "Jolene" is already about one person in a deteriorating part of a Love Triangle begging the other competitor to not take her man away, but...
  • Lil Nas X's version feels every bit like a tragic Bisexual Love Triangle. With the context that the singer is a man, the song now sounds like the singer's begging Jolene not to take away one of the very few men he can find, or that he's futilely denying that the man's already lost.
  • In Beyoncé's version from Cowboy Carter, the singer is warning Jolene of violence that might come to her if she tries to break up the singer's marriage.
  • Then, going the other direction, there's the various versions that cast Jolene as an Eldritch Abomination who consumes men's souls with her terrifying beauty. (Originally, it was a viral tumblr post, but so many people found the concept sufficiently interesting/amusing that at least a dozen distinct covers going this direction exist on youtube alone.)
  He screams about you in his sleep
  And when he wakes does naught but weep
  In terror of the one they call Jolene
• "Jozin z Bazin": The original, performed like a folk song with over-the-top cheesy sound effects, is a comedy about a local "drop bear"-like scare story turned into Munchausen style tall tale. Its cover by Dawid Mika ends up somewhere between a parody of action songs and speed metal ballad.
• "Juliette & Jonathan" by Swedish Lotta Engberg reached third place in Melodifestivalen 1996 and describes a young couple who find love together in spite of racial and cultural differences. When Finnish singer Anna Eriksson covered the song one year later, it retained the "us against the world" theme, but reverses the outcome of the story; instead of being protected by nature itself and serving as inspiration for other lovers, "Juliet ja Joonatan" end up as restless spirits and love "shatters into pieces, sharp as the shards of glass marbles." Finnish schlager is hardcore, indeed.
• "Jump" by Van Halen is a catchy, upbeat synth-pop song with rock overlaid on it. Aztec Camera's cover is a laidback song that gives the lyrics less urgency, giving off chill vibes.
• Downplayed with "Just a Dream" by Nelly. The original song is about regret over a breakup, and the cover by Christina Grimmie and Kurt Hugo Schneider is the same...but the song being a duet injects a nice dose of Dramatic Irony, as both singers clearly want to be back together, but assume the other doesn't want them anymore. Ouch...
  • Tsui later released another version in 2016 that is meant to be a Grief Song
• Bill Withers's R & B song "Just the Two of Us" is about a man who's looking to get intimate with a woman. Will Smith's rap cover of the song sees Will celebrating his son Trey's place in his life. While the cover does also touch on romance, Will's message is that Trey shouldn't let his or his father's romantic shortfalls poison his spirit.

K

• Kidnap the Sandy Claws. When it was originally used in The Nightmare Before Christmas, it was Lock, Shock and Barrel gleefully singing about all the ways to capture Santa they can come up with, and what they'll do with him once they have him. The lyrics were kinda creepy, but it was a song about a prank. On the cover album Nightmare Revisited, Korn took the song and mixed it up to sound more like a group of psychopaths planning to violently kidnap someone and torture them in many horrible ways.
• "Kill Your Sons," an unreleased Velvet Underground anti-war Protest Song, was later rewritten slightly by Lou Reed to be about his parents' attempts to "cure" his bisexuality.
• "Killing Me Softly With His Song," originally recorded by Lori Lieberman, is about a woman attracted to a singer and regretful that he is not reciprocating her affection. The 1974 Czech cover version Dvě malá křídla tu nejsou ("Two Little Wings Are Not Here") with lyrics by Zdeněk Borovec, one of singer Helena Vondráčková's standards, is about a young woman who has had an abortion and feels sad and guilty about it.
• "Kto tebe skazal" (Who told you?) was written by Vyacheslav Dobrynin for the vocal-instrumental ensemble^note which is what state-approved bands were called in the USSR to distinguish them from decadent capitalist rock bands Poyushchie Serdtsa (Singing Hearts) as a straightforward love confession. Happy Together, a Russian adaptation of Married... with Children has a cover of that song sung by Viktor Loginov (who also stars as the Al Bundy equivalent Gena Bukin) as its main theme, which, considering the Bundys (and by extension the Bukins) are one of the most famous examples of a Dysfunctional Family on television, flips the message of the song entirely. Younger people who grew up on Happy Together sometimes aren't even aware that its main theme was a cover of an existing song.

L

• "La Solitudine", by Italian singer Laura Pausini, it's a sad song about a girl and a boy who are separated when the boy has to move away with his family. When sung by notoriously bisexual Brazilian singer Renato Russo, the song appears to be about a young homosexual couple who is kept apart by the homophobia of one of their families.
• "Land Of A 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett is a fairly mundane '60s dance-pop song. Patti Smith's cover is a 10-minute psychedelic freakout about a male-on-male rape victim who commits suicide by slitting his throat.
• "Last Christmas" by WHAM is a somewhat melancholy song about a man whose heart was broken last Christmas, and the original tone and tempo fit. Several cover versions, however (including the one by Taylor Swift), make it far more upbeat with a faster tempo. However, the Puppini Sisters' version does it In the Style of 40's chanteuse music and reinstates the melancholy.
• "Last Day in Heaven" by Barathrum is about an invasion of Heaven, with demons slaughtering angels and so forth. In the second verse of Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus' cover, God enters the fray and shows why raging against Heaven is a bad idea.
• "Layla" by Eric Clapton: Clapton did two versions of his own song. The original electric version with Derek & the Dominoes is a young man, pining so hard for the woman he loves that he's raging. The solo acoustic version, a few decades later, is an older man softly regretting the love that was lost.
• "Le moribond" ("The Dying Man") by Belgian singer Jacques Brel is better known to English-speaking audiences as "Seasons in the Sun". In this form, it has been covered by multiple artists, most recently Westlife. The original is a song about a cheating wife, and it was freely modified when translated into English by Rod McKuen (and bent even further by Terry Jacks); the original is substantially snarkier, with the singer taking digs at his best friend, who is the one who his wife was cheating with, and who apparently didn't realize the husband knew everything. The Czech pop star Karel Gott's cover version Léta prázdnin (lyrics by Zdeněk Borovec) is rather similar to Terry Jacks' version but rather innocent-sounding, about a young man making his good-byes with his loved ones (brother, father, and girlfriend) before leaving home, apparently in order to start his first job.
• "Leader of the Pack" by The Shangri-Las is about a girl reluctantly breaking up with her boyfriend and his death in a motorcycle accident. In Twisted Sister's version, the singer is the Leader of the Pack and it's the girl who dies instead.
• "Let It Be" by The Beatles: Israeli composer Naomi Shemer decided in 1973 to write new words inspired by the breakout of the Yom Kippur War. When she played it, her husband said that this is a Jewish song now and it should have a Jewish melody to go with it, so she... tweaked... the melody to be more in the spirit of the new lyrics, ending up with less of a cover and more of a Gritty Reboot. Here is an Israel's-American-Idol contestant performing it. The lyrics with an English translation can be found here, and note that this is the watered-down version without the verse that starts with "If your soul wishes for death".
• "Let It Go" from Frozen
  • In an interesting version, it was written as a Villain Song, then when Idina Menzel sang it for the film, the film was rewritten to have her character Elsa be heroic instead of a villain. So it's a case of The Cover Changes The Meaning before the song was properly released.
  • The pop version by Demi Lovato changes the context further to be about letting go of a broken relationship.
• "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads:
  • The original, according to songwriter David Byrne, has lyrics describing a Walker Percy-ish post-apocalyptic landscape where a revolutionary hides out in a deserted cemetery, surviving on peanut butter. The song has a frantic nature to it.
  • The cover by The Staple Singers has a cool funky R&B vibe, but it makes it sound like peanut butter is just another item on a grocery list.
• "Like a Virgin" by Madonna: Sister Cristina Scuccia, winner of Italy's version of The Voice, has a Softer and Slower Cover version that completely removes all of the innuendo from the original.
• "Lithium" by Nirvana: The Polyphonic Spree's celebratory cover works about as often as it doesn't since some lyrics can be taken at face value and others are "I killed you, I'm not gonna crack"
• "Louie Louie" by Richard Berry:
  • The Kingsmen's take on it has been covered by a crapload of artists, and both the Berry and Kingsmen versions are about a sailor at sea thinking of his lover.
  • Iggy Pop's cover only keeps the chorus - the rest is changed to a very politically charged rant (context: Soviet collapse and contemporary events).
• "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" by Bruce Cockburn is a stark guitar ballad that was written to emphasize anger (especially in the music video) about the racial, socio-economic, and political issues of the decade, and how they reflect on love. The Barenaked Ladies' version from the 1992 Kick At The Darkness: The Songs of Bruce Cockburn tribute album is a faster-paced, softer, and almost wistful tune. The group is resigned and cheerful about the fact that "sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime". The Ladies' music video, which goes from floaty slo-mo to frantic, and includes lots of comedic bits, just emphasizes it.
• "Love Stoned" by Justin Timberlake: The Hoosiers' cover changes it from a poppy dance song to a melancholy ballad of addiction or something. Just watch here.
• "Love Story" by Taylor Swift is a song about a boy and girl who have to hide their relationship from her father, but the lyrics never get specific about why they're afraid he might not approve (though the references to Romeo and Juliet might imply a family feud). At least three separate fan covers (by Monica Nguyen, Kristin Rose and Reinaeiry) have altered the lyrics so that both the narrator and her love interest are girls, and are keeping their relationship a secret for fear of homophobia. Both retain the happy ending of the original - the former keeps the lines "I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress", implying the father was less close-minded than expected and she was able to convince him to approve, while the latter changes it to "Don’t worry about your dad...", possibly implying they're getting married with or without his approval. The third changes the line to "We'll go far away, I will take you out of this mess", hinting that the couple is planning to run away together.
• Downplayed Trope, here; David Oliver's original rendition of "Love TKO", while not exactly upbeat, carries a connotation of "I know I'm going to lose, but I'm not going down without a fight." Teddy Pendergrass' far more well-known cover, on the other hand, is completely hopeless, presenting a version wherein the singer has become a male Broken Bird after failing two relationships in a row. Most of the boxing references have been removed, as well.
• The Cure's Lovesong is a somewhat sappy ballad. Snake River Conspiracy turned it into a terrifying stalker-ish rant.
• "Lyubochka" by Masha i Medvedi takes the majority of its lyrics from a poem by famous Soviet children's poet Agniya Barto. Barto's poem is about a schoolgirl (titular Lyubocka) who is quite a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and contains An Aesop indignating such behaviour. Masha i Medvedi threw out the aesop and any reference to Lyubocka's age or her jerk side, making it seem like a song about a grown-up hardcore party girl (who is probably also sexually liberated, considering some of the "censor bar" imagery that shows up in the music video).
• Lord of the Reedy River* was written and performed by Music/Donovan as a folk ballad for the children's music album HMS Donovan, and inspired by the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan recounting the story as a fable to be sung to others. Mary Hopkins did a cover performing it much like the original, while Kate Bush did a cover that changed the pronouns from "She" to "I" inserting herself as the Leda character who falls in love with the swan. Kate Bush also recorded her cover in an indoor swimming pool and replaced the guitar playing of the original and Hopkin's cover with flutes and ambient noise from the swimming pool. Donovan loved this approach enough to assist with the background vocals.

M

• "Mack the Knife": Most versions contrast a light, peppy tone with disturbing lyrics about murdering prostitutes.
  • The Psychedelic Furs cover has an aural menace to match the lyrics.
  • Ella Fitzgerald sang it (in the style of Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darrin) for the first time on her live album Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin. Three verses or so into the song, she forgot the rest of the lyrics and improvised her own. Ella's version went metafictional, as she poked fun at herself for botching the song and at the label executives who suggested she cover it in the first place. The track won a Grammy.
• "Mad World" by Tears for Fears: The well-known Donnie Darko cover by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews turns it from a synth-filled catchy song into one much slower, more somber, and depressingly down-to-earth. In an odd case, this version has somewhat Covered Up the original and become the basis for nearly all future covers of the song, such as the one by Alex Parks.
• "Malen'kaya strana" (Little Land) by Natasha Koroleva: The original version of the song (capitalising on Koroleva's image as a young ingenue she had at the time) is sung from the point of view of a girl who imagines a fantasy land and wishes to actually get there. The band Agatha Christie, whose music has a noticeable gothic The Cure-esque bent, performed a much Darker and Edgier version on a New Year special, which sounds more like a vision of oncoming death, even including an ominous bell in its arrangement. An additional layer comes from the fact that Gleb Samoylov, lead singer of Agatha Cristie, had a notorious drug addiction problem.
• "Maps" by Maroon 5 is an upbeat song with somewhat sad lyrics and an infamously depressing music video. Madilyn Bailey's cover is much more emotional and sorrowful, and actually fits what happens in the video better than the original does.
• "Maria" by Blondie originally talks about teenage lust and desire. But the cover by Kim Ah-joong in 200 Pounds Beauty is undoubtedly more inspirational and talks about reaching for your dreams, a much more fitting theme for the movie it’s in.
• "Maybe Tomorrow (Theme from The Littlest Hobo)" is notable for being used by two series in two very different contexts about the same topic (a nomadic life): the original is an optimistic and hopeful song, while the Nightinggale Cummings cover recorded for the Season 10 finale of Trailer Park Boys is pessimistic and world-weary. (That the second was recorded as, effectively, part of a joke, is unimportant to this discussion, since part of the joke requires a song that's fundamentally depressing about "moving on", so changing the meaning is the meaning of the joke.)
• The Magic Roundabout theme was reimagined by Bill Bailey, complete with the "secret middle section" which reveals that Zebedee is a deformed, demonic megalomaniac with a Dark and Troubled Past.
• "Many Rivers To Cross" by Jimmy Cliff was turned by UB40 from one of melancholy to one of empowerment.
• "The Man Who Sold the World" by David Bowie is lyrically ambiguous enough that a meaning is hard to get, but it seems to suggest that the titular Man is another entity, albeit a doppelganger, with the same Cosmic Horror Story tendencies as the rest of the album.
  • Midge Ure's version, on the other hand, with a bleaker, synthpop-esque arrangement, gives the impression that it's about a man who has changed to the point where he cannot recognise himself.
  • Nirvana's cover is also similar, but with an even bleaker tone, and one lyric change ("We should have died alone") suggests that the singer knows full well how much he's changed and loathes himself for it.
  • On the other hand, Lulu's cover takes a different interpretation. Aside from The Cover Changes the Gender, it changes the entire tone of the song to a sleazy Cabaret tune and has Bowie himself contribute vocals on the chorus, suggesting that the singer is a Club Singer who strikes up a conversation with the Man Who Sold the World, without knowing who she's really talking to, and lacks the introspection and supernatural elements of the other versions
• "Material Girl" by Madonna became hit with this due to massively Misaimed Fandom.
  • Some have claimed that Britney Spears' cover completely missed the irony of the original and subscribes to its message.
  • The Spanish cover version reverses the meaning, the singer stating that she is not at all impressed with those who brag about their income, fancy parties, and travels and that she does not have "a soul made of metal."
• Lene Marlin's cover of Faye Wong's "Hong Dou", retitled "Still Here". The original is about love and fidelity; the cover is about suicidal ideation.
• "Me and Bobby McGee", written in 1969 by Kris Kristofferson. Since the name "Bobby" can apply to either a man or woman, very little change in the lyrics is necessary (at least if the singer wants the relationship to be heterosexual). It was originally written for a male singer (the Statler Brothers, though Roger Miller was first to chart with it). The version by Janis Joplin is the best known, and it was the first time the song had been performed by a woman. Nearly all covers since then have been done from the female perspective (it helps that "Bobby" is normally a male name).
• "Merry Christmas From The Family" by Robert Earl Kean is a song about a dysfunctional family in a trailer park having a drunken Christmas filled with disasters and red-neck jokes. Jill Sobule's cover uses the exact same words to produce a song describing a dysfunctional family in a trailer park...having a wonderful Christmas filled with singing children, quirky relatives, and a relative performing a last-minute Christmas miracle.
• "The Metro" by Berlin is a poppy, somewhat sad song about moving on after a bad breakup. The cover by System of a Down is a rage-filled rant about being abandoned by a loved one.
• William Shatner's much-ridiculed Spoken Word take on Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" is nevertheless the only version that fully supports the interpretation that reads the singer as a broke junkie begging his dealer for his fix.
• "The Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett is a well-known and lighthearted novelty song for Halloween, but Vincent Price did a cover of the song in 1977 that sounds more sinister and creepy, complete with the sound of a woman screaming near the end.
• "Moonlight Shadow": Pathfinders cover goes from a very tragic song about a woman watching her boyfriend getting shot to pieces in a crossfire between policemen and a fugitive and hoping she gets to see him in heaven to her sounding extremely happy about, well, her boyfriend getting shot to pieces in a crossfire between policemen and a fugitive.
• Morrisey inspired a WMG involving his creepy-as-hell cover of "Moon River", that his version is either sung from the perspective of a murderer or addressed to a murderer, possibly Perry Smith.
• "My Generation" by The Who: Hillary Duff's cover tried to give it a theme of "older people don't get it," but one word addition brought the whole thing crashing down: "Hope I don't die before I get old."
  • It's also a given that any senior citizens' rock choir will have this song in their repertoire, essentially inverting the song's original premise.
• "My Humps". What happens when the Black Eyed Peas release a song that tries to parody the mindless materialism and misogyny of crunk rap, and winds up sounding just as stupid as the source material? Have Alanis Morissette sing the song exactly as written in her famous angsty style, turning it into a tongue-in-cheek lament of the same while simultaneously getting the song's original intended message across.

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