Hold On Me

I recently purchased Thao Nguyen's latest album, which undoubtedly will end up on the best of June post. So, I'll hold off on my adoration and love of this album. What I will say is that Thao covers the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles song, "You've Really Got a Hold On Me" which has always been a favorite song of mine.

I didn't think too much about it, until I re-listened to the recent She & Him album (the project of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel). And I heard yet another cover of the song.

I started thinking about how often this song has been covered. There are countless covers of this song...Check out this blog link to read more about covers of this song. So, we've got The Beatles, The Zombies, The Small Faces, Percy Sledge, The Jackson 5, Laura Nyro & Labelle, She & Him. I kept wondering, who else? Let's not leave out Cyndi Lauper, Eddie Money, Sonny and Cher, The Temptations, Bobby McFerrin.

Next, I wondered what song has been the most covered song of all time. Of course, this is not an easy task (as wikipedia informs me). Apparently, it is speculated that The Beatles' "Yesterday" is the most covered song in popular music history. Though the website, Secondhand Songs lists The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" as the most covered.

Of course, there is derision in the fact that "Happy Birthday" is technically the most sung song of all time.

And so, what song is the most covered song performed, not necessarily recorded? Apparently, an unscientific study believes that Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel #2" is the most covered- by a simple youtube.com search.

To close out, here is a video of The Beatles' cover of "You've Really Got a Hold On Me".



That being said, my absolute favorite version is of my best friend, Jennie Ann, performing this song in the Waffle House in Asheville, NC circa 1995.