Blinded by the light - Manfred Mann's Earth Band

Sometimes a cover can be more successful than the original. This is certainly the case here as the original (apparently very different) song was written and performed by Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen was originally touted as the new Dylan and so the move makes sense from a band that had recorded Dylan's Mighty Quinn. The song was written because an executive at Columbia thought Springsteen's Greetings from Asbury Park NJ lacked a potential single. According to Springsteen, the song came about from going through a rhyming dictionary looking for rhymes. The first line "Madman drummers, bummers, and Indians in the summers with a teenage diplomat" is autobiographical as drummer Vini Lopez was known as "Mad Man" (later "Mad Dog") and "Indians in the summer" refers to Springsteen's old Little League team; "teenage diplomat" refers to himself. The remainder of the song tells of many unrelated events, with the refrain of "Blinded by the light, cut loose (or revved up in the Manfred Mann version) like a deuce, another runner in the night". As ever in rock it is the sound of the words that matters rather than the meaning. Having said that, the lyrics in the Manfred Mann version are different to those in the Springsteen one. They have been basically edited down from the original. Singer Chris Thompson also manages to make the word deuce sound like douche! Calliope was one of the muses. The word is also used for a musical instrument. What gives this version its power is the arrangement with synthesisers, guitars and a nice double tracked and contrasting vocal near the end. The album version reveals the use of chopsticks as the basic keyboard rhythm throughout.

My favourite game - The Cardigans

The Cardigans are a Swedish rock group, not that many people would guess that listening to their single My favourite game, which came out in 1998. The track has many attractive features but the distinctive yet simple guitar hook is the one that stands out. This evidently came to the fore as the original slow country song was speeded up to more resemble the product we have today. The track uses all manner of modern recording techniques, ultimately of real interest only to the cognoscenti. However, it is worth noting that while the verses are at a reasonably fast pace when we slow down for the bass-heavy chorus, the drums appear to be run at half-time rather than simply slowing down. The song was apparently successful worldwide, helped by a controversial video. The single originally appeared on the fourth studio album by The Cardigans called Gran Turismo. Both single and album reference the Play Station video game series. In the single the game appears to be love. A woman is trying to improve her lover but finally gives up, feeling she has failed. The third verse is striking - I only know what I've been working for, another you so I could love you more. I really thought that I could take you there but my experiment is not getting us anywhere. This is a well known irony in relationships where one finds that the person who attracts you is the person you want to change. The final lines are I've tried but you're still the same. I'm losing my baby, you're losing a saviour and a saint which is inevitably going to be taken as ironic but reads better as her own honest assessment of the situation. As a general rule young men and women should be on the look out for someone morally superior whose character they can aspire to rather than someone inferior who they endeavour to drag up to their own standard.

Love is strange - Buddy Holly

There are many versions of this Bo Diddley penned song, including one by the Everly Brothers and another by Sonny and Cher. Mickey & Sylvia's version appeared first in 1956 and was popularised in the 1987 Dirty Dancing film. In 1969 someone put an organ and strings backing track on to a demo by the inimitable Buddy Holly and made a fine version. It is the riff by Jody Williams that gives the song its mesmeric atmosphere. The lyrics of the song will not stand close scrutiny but in pop music sound is as important as meaning and so with love, miss and kiss in there it is a fine pop lyric, ideal for a teenage audience. What is being sung about is infatuation not love, of course, and one would want to encourage any teenager besotted with the song or the girl at the next desk to see that. Love is not so strange but learning about love and seeking to understand how it all works can be, especially at first. Otherwise, we have three minutes of great enjoyment here, still amazingly fresh more than 40 or 50 years on.

One of us - Joan Osborne

A Christian is bound to be nervous at Joan Osborne's 1995 song written by Eric Bazilian of The Hooters (who has also recorded the song). What are they actually up to? Is this mockery or an attempt at profound comment? Things like And yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good are right enough but the following Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah sounds dismissive. The idea of God being "like one of us" raises the subject of the incarnation but Jesus was never a slob like one of us. Though like us, he was perfect. The question of whether God has a face and what it would look like raises the matter of his transcendence. How many would want to see it if they had to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets. Shying away from being too honest the song resorts to a feeble joke about the Pope maybe in Rome. The ideas in the song perhaps reflect a Roman Catholic background. The album version starts off with the first four lines of a recording titled "The aeroplane ride" made on October 27, 1937 by American folklorist Alan Lomax and his wife Elizabeth. The singer is Mrs Nell Hampton from Kentucky. It is a variation of the 1928 John S. McConnell hymn "Heavenly Aeroplane". The song One if s has been very popular. Whatever it's purpose, it is very refreshing to hear someone singing about God for a change.

Game of Love - Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders

We had the 1965 hit 7" vynyl single Game of Love by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders in our house as I was growing up. Not sure where it came from. It was on the Fontana label and I remember deciding that Wayne Fontana must be the son of the obviously older owner of the record label. As it turns out, his name was Glyn G Ellis and the name was based on that of D J Fontana, Elvis Presley's drummer. The song was written by American Clint Ballard Jnr and is a pretty good pop single with some nice hooks, a repeated two line verse, two line chorus; two line verse, two line chorus; bridge structure, with a coda and all over in under two minutes. The second verse says that the game of love started long ago in the Garden of Eden/When Adam said to Eve, baby, you're for me which I was broadly willing to accept, although I was somehow conscious that baby, you're for me was very much a sixties phrase and unlikely to be a verbatim report of Adam's words to the first woman. What I liked most about the song was the very low singing of the word "Love". In my childish mind it was like a really good burp. Maturer reflection appreciates the drum sound and the bass on what is a throw away song but not bad for all that. There is more than one song with the name Game of love. A cover version of this particular song was successfully released by Tex Power in 1987. Love, of course, may appear to be a game when one is young but it is no game in fact.

Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival

I have loved this song ever since it first came out in 1969. A number 1 single in the UK many have covered it. Its strengths include its brevity (only 20 seconds over the two minute mark) and its simplicity of structure and performance (verse chorus, verse chorus, a simple instrumental break, verse, chorus, chorus; played by a familiar three or four piece band of drums, bass, guitars and vocal). What gives it that extra special oomph is the tightness of the rhythm section, John Fogerty's raw voice and the apocalyptic words - I hear hurricanes ablowin',  I know the end is comin' soon,  I fear rivers overflowin', I hear the voice of rage and ruin ... Hope you got your things together, Hope you are quite prepared to die,  Looks like we're in for nasty weather, One eye is taken for an eye. One guesses that Fogerty is trying to be ironic rather than serious. (He based the song on a horror movie he saw on TV). If so, it is a double irony as the end is indeed comin' soon when Christ returns to judge the world and so we really do need to be prepared to die. What the song lacks, of course, is a message of salvation. The bad moon is arising but the Sun of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings and all who trust in him can face him with confidence through his blood.