On my myspace profile I have a cover of Ace of Base’s “The Sign”.  My reason for covering it was because John Darnielle frequently plays it at his shows, and it reminded me of how great that song is, and how fun it is to play for a room full of people who all know the words.  At the time I was working on Here Lies Laika stuff and thought it would be great to do a raucous punkish cover, so I did.  And people really like it.

Like, really like it.  It easily trumps the other songs on my profile in terms of plays.  Most compliments I get regarding my music come from that song.  It’s accessible, it’s exremely well known, and it’s fun to hear a guy sing a song originally sung by women.  People also like to hear interesting/fun renditions of songs that they love.

It makes me think of Julia Nunes, who makes amazingly cute ukulele covers of popular songs on her YouTube site (thereby covering three different marketing strategies alone!).  I fell in love with Julia’s stuff and her adorable online presence.  And then I listened to her original albums.

For a nineteen year old girl, they are pretty good stripped down singer-songwriter albums.  But to be honest, they lack the punch and style that are so abundant on her YouTube videos.  And suddenly this, coupled with my own cover, created an annoyingly frightening question in my head: how do you live up to your cover?

Some people spend their entire lives playing in house bands who just do nothing but covers.  There are also tribute bands, who play one particular artist/band’s repertoire.  But what about us, the young singer-songwriters who throw in a cover or two into their setlists?  What do we do when our covers garner more attention than our original songs?

The answer to this, of course, is very simple: you learn.  In my case, I’ve learned that “The Sign” is so popular because it encapsulates a perfect pop song structure: it’s about three minutes long, two verses, one chorus that’s incredibly catchy, a simple chord progression, a breakdown of sorts toward the end … it’s all there.  People like it because it’s not complicated, and it’s not deep.  I think it also helps that Ace of Base is Swedish; a good selection of awesome bands come from Sweden.  But anyway, it makes you think of what makes a song good or popular or catchy.  It’s not complexity by any means.

My dad once told me to stop putting so many chords in my songs.  ”You’ve got to keep it simple,” he said, “so that any gorilla can dance to it.”  (Gorilla is a lovely term for some of the people he’s played to at bars.)  At first I was horrified — how dare he tell me how to write my songs!  I can put however many chords I want, thank you very much! But then as I looked back on songs of mine that work, as in, songs that people like and have said they liked, I noticed a pattern.  They were all simple, structurally.  They had few chords, a pattern that was recognizable (e.g. I-IV-Vish stuff), some have catchy choruses.  Things that make it easier for people to be a part of the music with you.

So I guess my point is — learn from the greats.  There are reasons why certain songs are covered, and usually it’s because they’re great songs to play and because people like to hear them or sing along to them.  Your own songs might never reach the level of, say, Queen, but you can certainly learn from (and steal) their techniques.