Song covers that are better than the originals

The Ramones' cover of the Stones' classic, Out of Time.

How about Jazz "covers" of popular tunes, such as:

Coltrane "My Favorite Things"

Johnny Griffin "The Way You Look Tonight"

Ziggy Stardust, the Bauhaus version. Now that rocks!

how about Springsteen's 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' ?

HO HO HO !!!

Springsteen covering Springsteen `Blinded By the Light`

Wall of Voodoo's cover of Ring of Fire.

Forgot to mention Perfect Circle's redux of "Imagine"

Los Lobos "Somewhere in time"

Shonen Knife: Top of the World
Nazareth: Love Hurts (and I love Orbison)
Persuasions: Angel of Harlem
Cowboy Junkies: Thunder Road
Eagles: Hotel California (tell me this is not a steal/cover of Jethro Tull's "We Used to Know")

Uncle Tupelo - Moonshiner
Gob Iron - Hard Times

Al Green: I want to hold your hand
Bruce Springsteen: Trapped

If anybody believes that a Jim Morrison song/performance can be covered and improved doesn't get it.

Can't see how someone could prefer Billiy Idol's LA Woman to The Doors' version, but I guess people would say the same about my preference of Stone Temple Pilots' version of Dancing Days to Led Zeppelin's.

In addition to a few that have been mentioned -

Stone Temple Pilots - Dancing Days

All of Metallica's covers

Oh and I forgot
Eight Miles High by Husker Du and Black Diamond by the Replacements

Breathless by X
Just My Imagination by the Rolling Stones
Rockin All Over the World by Status Quo
Young Man Blues by the Who

Bette Midler singing Hello in There - by John Prine.

For mild angelic covers check out 'Scala & Kolacny Brothers' on youtube. Rather excellent.

Rascal Flatts version of Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway

They are very tight and Jim Riley does a great job of giving it a lilt (shuffle feel).

Google "Oops...I Did it Again Richard Thompson".

Covers, at worst IMHO equal to the originals......

My Way-Siderney Vicious
Satisfaction-Devo
Brand New Key-DollyRots
Sheena blah blah punk rocker-Shebang
Nelly the Elephant- Toy Dolls
Jolene-Queen Adreena
Ziggy Stardust-Bauhaus
God save the spleen-Motorhead
Shiny Happy People-Fatima Mansions
Tomorrow Never Knows-Danielle Dax
I don't Feel Like Dancing-Hayseed Dixie
Lilac Wine-Elke Brooks

Aerosmith-train kept a rolling
Galaxy 500-isn't it a pity

The slits-heard it thru the grapevine
Montrose-connection
Pale saints-blue flower

Jimi Hendrix version of Dylans "All Along the Watchtower"

Clapton's cover of J.J. Cale's "After Midnight"

agree with gdoodle on johnny cash. personally, i think the seeemingly endless series of his "american recordings" covers albums are way overhyped, but "hurt" is the song he was born to sing.
i don't know if anyone's mentioned the ultimate cover band, this mortal coil, who absolutely nail some fantastic, if underheard songs like "i am the cosmos" (chris bell), "strength of strings" (gene clark) and "another day" (roy harper), which is arguably the prettiest song in the english language.

Johnny Cash - Hurt. Way WAY better. One of the seminal recordings of the decade.

other honorable mentions - with a jazzy bent:

Bjork's Hyperballad - covered by that polish piano guy on ECM that I can't pronounce.

Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden - "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is amazing. Dozens of guys trying to play it on youtube - doing covers of his cover if you will. Jimmy Webb's own recent recording is pretty nice.

Bill Frisell doing Madonna's Live to Tell or John Hiatt's Have a Little Faith... OK, hard to say they are "better" but for a jazz fan "more interesting."

Jeff Beck's A Day in the Life. I know you can't beat the beatles, but his is better than Paul McCartney's recent live version if you ask me.

I like Elliot Smith doing SuperSonic better than Oasis.

And lastly -rap anthem Straight Outta Compton, NGA original. Nina Gordon's delicate ACOUSTIC version is incredible, melodious and hilarious.

Dance Society"s cover of the Stones "1000 Light Years From
Home"

The Cure's cover of "Purple Haze" on the Hendrix tribute album "Stonefree"

I just found a new one:

Grant Green covering The Isley Bros. "It's Your Thing". This is a great take on a classic - definitely worth checking out.

Marty

The you know what they say about opinions adage may apply... (IMO in some cases covers can be good or interesting, but there's no such thing as better). Anyway The Shadows cover of Sleepwalk is real good... same with The Who/ Young Man Blues, Mountain's/ Theme For An Imaginary Western and Steve Khan's/ Penetration. I recently picked up a disc by The Asphalt Orchestra cuz it was cheap and had a cover of Zomby Woof and a Mingus composition on it. Turns out they are an amazingly good marching band... big surprise for me was a Bjork cover, (Hyper Ballad). Don't know what the original is like, but the Asphalt Orch. version is likely to make most FZ fans stand up and pledge allegiance to the Grand Wazoo or at least almost drive off the road like I did.

PS The Ayers Rock cover of Weather Report's Boogie Woogie Waltz, (i know it's a dumb song title) smokes and has groovier'n hell guitar work on it.

Faces doing "Memphis, Tennessee"

Slade again: Joplin's "Move Over", gets me every time; and "Let The Good Times Roll" - the latter is not quite legit because it is a combo song, but if this doesn't get you bouncing around the room then something's badly wrong with you or your system, :-)

(gee, do I detect a theme here ...?)

Frank

The Ramones' cover of the Stones' classic, Out of Time.

Slade's live version of John Sebastian's "Darling Be Home Soon"

I'm probably a minority in this thought but I preferred Gun N' Roses renditions of Live and Let Die and Knockin on Heaven's Door to the originals. I especially like the Knockin on Heaven's Door off of the GnR Live Era 2 CD set where Axl's says Gimme some Reggae.

Bruce Springsteen's version of Jimmy Cliff's Trapped.

Luka Bloom's cover of LL Cool J's "I Need Love".
Don't know if he's ever recorded it, but a showstopper in concert.

Luka Bloom's cover of U2's "Bad"

If you like REM's version of Wichita Lineman, you ought to hear Cassandra Wilson's cover. Also, Stevie Ray's cover of Little Wing is amazing.

Some lesser known covers

The Duhks - Love is the seventh wave.
The Red House Painters - All Mixed Up or Silly love songs

I prefer covers when they don't sound like the originals

John Cale - Heartbreak Hotel
Sid Vicious - My Way

From the last time this kind of thread went around:

Danny Gatton's take on Earle Hagan's "Harlem Nocturne", a song usually associated with Duke Ellington. IMHO, guitar playing doesn't get much better than this.

Don Dixon/Marti Jones' version of Joe Tex's "You Got What it Takes (To Take What I Got)". The sound of two singers in love/lust. (Dixon and Jones are married.) My wife and I used this one for our first dance.

Marty

Jeff Buckley covering Leonard Cohen's hallelujah.

All Van Halen covers.... "Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison), "You really got me" (Kinks), and Linda Ronstad's "Baby you're no good".

I hope I got the original artists correct.

Elton John's: 1 - Pinball Wizard (slings and arrows on the way I am sure)
2 - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Shelby Lynne - How Can I Be Sure

Hendrix - Watchtower

Mettallica - Whiskey in a Jar

Van Halen - You Really Got Me (if you include Eruption, there should never be a discussion)

Johnny cash's version of Trent Reznors "Hurt".

James Taylors "you've got a friend"

Mark

Sonic Youth --- Superstar

Oh, I have a 12" 45 of (a)"Ring of Fire", (b)"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly/Hang 'Em High" by Wall of Voodoo. Still love the original Johnny Cash though.

Patti Smith's version of George Harrison's Within You Without You.
Joe Cocker's version of With A Little Help From My Friends.
Tori Amos singing Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat. Yes Jennifer Warnes' version is beautiful but Amos nails the emotional weight of the song.
Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah.

"Smoke on the Water" by a Japanese orchestra.

Heard Deep Purple do it live once (terrible), but like this version.

Not kidding (give it time to get going).

I also collect Koto music, which is how I ran across it.

Smoke on the Water

Actually Dave Mason's Version of "All Along the Watchtower" is good too and I beleiev he played back up on the Hendrix recording.
One more for my list:
Sweet Jane-Cowboy Junkies