Cover me, shut the door and cover me...

I love cover songs. I actually collect the things, and my iTunes account is loaded with various interpretations of artists' songs by other artists. While I'm a huge fan of original music, I also admire someone who can take another artist's music and make it sound new. Jimi Hendrix did it beautifully with Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," Devo did it weirdly (as Devo tends to do) with The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and William "Captain Kirk" Shatner did it amazingly bad with another Dylan tune, "Mr. Tambourine Man." I also have to say that I prefer Jill Sobule's cover of Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From The Family" over Keen's own original take.

I have no problem with an artist putting his or her personal stamp on a song, so long as the original intent of said song stays intact. That doesn't always happen though, which brings me to Cee-Lo Green's recent live cover of John Lennon's classic song "Imagine," in which Green took it upon himself to change some of Lennon's lyrics. You can view a clip here. Yeah, you heard correctly. Green changed Lennon's lyrics "No religion too," to "All religion is true." Now, I've been a fan of Green's since his work with the great Atlanta rap group Goodie Mob, on through his success with Gnarls Barkley, and really dug his 2010 solo release "The Lady Killer," which featured the runaway hit "Fu-," er...rather "Forget You." The guy has street cred and an amazing set of pipes, and the truth is that we probably still haven't seen the guy's best work yet. With that said, Cee-Lo, buddy, what the hell?!? You've taken what is arguably the best song made by a Beatle after the Beatles ceased to be, and completely changed the meaning. Lennon was trying to make a point with this deceptively simple song, and it's a message that has been listened to, loved, and yes, even covered countless times. Then you went and completely changed the meaning in front of a national audience (or at least as many people were watching CNN on New Years Eve). To put it bluntly, it was a dick move on your part. Cover the song, but don't change it. How would you feel if someone changed the lyrics in your most recent hit to "Forget Me?" Kinda changes the whole dynamic of the tune, doesn't it?