Cover Me Up (The Beatles)

• Free Collections
• Non-Internet Archive
• Phish White Album
• Ashkenaz 2011
• Ashkenaz 2013
• Baghdad Scuba Review
• Blake Tedder
• Brain Damaged Eggmen
• The Breakfast
• Cacaphonics
• Charles Parker
• OSU 2006
• OSU 2007
• Charlie Phillips
• Ekoostik Hookah
• Flowmotion
• God Johnson
• Heavy Pets
• Hot Buttered Rum
• Leroy Justice
• Long Strange Night
• Machine
• Old Shoe
• Robyn Hitchcock
• Rocktopus
• Rubber Souldiers
• Sean Canan's Voodoo Players
• Shakedown Street
• theCAUSE
• Tim Palmieri
• Internet Archive

The Beatles (1696 songs)

Over the years, I've collected other artists' free, legal, on-line covers of Beatles songs. Many were found on the now-defunct MP3.com, but I then found a treasure trove at the Internet Archive's Audio Archive. Unfortunately, the songs are not always credited to the Beatles in the set lists, so I've been reduced to searching the archive for individual song titles. (Or simply trying concerts at random - everyone does a Beatles song every now and then!) There are the occasional false positives, like a bunch of "Tell Me Why"s, and I'm not sure about the Mermen's "Within You Without You" instrumental that I've included below.

As someone who has usually preferred the Beatles' performances of their own songs, I have to admit that there are some great versions by others out there. When all is said and done, however, the real stand-out has got to be the just-shy-of-20-minutes 1982 recording of "Lady Madonna" by the Rose Hill Junior High School Jazz Ensemble - incredible!

My family and I saw Beatlemania Now, a Beatles cover band, at Wildwood, NJ in August 2005 - they were great! In researching the group on the Internet, I came across The Word Is Love! (Wayback Machine), a now-defunct site with over 600 links to Beatles tribute bands. Although I decided not to include cover-band versions of songs below, there is a lot of music available on-line at many of the bands' web sites - I encourage you to go exploring.

Maurice Cohen maintains a comprehensive database of Beatles covers at The Beatles Covers.

Video sites such as YouTube are an inexhaustible source of Beatles covers. I include YouTube covers if I happen upon one, so you'll find a few scattered here and there below, but I don't make an effort to catalog each and every one available.

However, Bizerks BEATLES COVER SONGS, "The Most Complete List of Beatles Covers Songs on the Internet" (and I believe it), is an incredible, well-researched compilation of links to YouTube videos of Beatles cover songs. The website is not just that though. For each song, you get release information about the Beatles' own version (including a link to a YouTube video for it) and a list of artists who have covered the song. The song's entry for each artist includes information (release dates, albums, album covers, etc.) and, if available, a link to where the cover version can be heard online (primarily YouTube, but also other sites). Scroll all the way down the main page for more things to explore: solo Beatles song covers, etc. As of early 2021, the site had about 80,000 listings and over 35,000 YouTube links!

Here's a list of Beatles and solo Beatles covers I currently have. Again, these are songs I've found on-line. All songs were legally available for download at the time I downloaded them; sadly, some bands have broken up and/or their cover songs are no longer on the web. The songs are grouped as follows:

• Free Collections - links to sites that have collections of free covers available for download.

• Non-Internet Archive - covers found at sites other than the Internet Archive.

• Phish performs The White Album

• Ashkenaz John Lennon Tribute 2011

• Ashkenaz Creme Tangerine Benefit 2013

• Baghdad Scuba Review celebrates 4-20

• Blake Tedder at Rosemont Studio

• Brain Damaged Eggmen (Disco Biscuits Side Projects) performs a Beatles Set

• Hooked on Cacaphonics

• Charles Parker's Beatles Arrangements for piano

• Charles Parker and others at The Beatles at OSU 2006

• Charles Parker and others at The Beatles at OSU 2007

• Charlie Phillips hosts A 75^th Birthday Tribute to George Harrison

• Ekoostik Hookah performs "Beatles Jam"

• Flowmotion performs Rubber Soul

• God Johnson performs a "To Sir Paul With Love" set

• Heavy Pets performs a Beatles set

• Hot Buttered Rum performs a Beatles set

• Leroy Justice performs Let It Be

• Long Strange Night performs Beatles and Grateful Dead covers

• Machine performs "Beatlejam"

• Old Shoe performs Let It Be

• Robyn Hitchcock performs Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

• Rocktopus performs a (mostly) Beatles set

• Various artists unite to perform mash-ups of Beatles classics

• Sean Canan's Voodoo Players perform a Beatles-themed set

• Shakedown Street performs Abbey Road

• theCAUSE performs songs from Rubber Soul and Revolver

• Tim Palmieri performs a Beatles Tribute set

• Internet Archive - covers found at the Internet Archive.

Free Collections of Covers

I've come across a number of web sites for bands that cover Beatles songs, generally with too many songs to download individually and scatter among the non-Internet Archive listing below. I'm trying not to include tribute bands that do note-for-note copies of the Beatles recordings. (I personally like seeing Beatles tribute bands. It takes a lot of talent and effort to figure out and play Beatles songs and I applaud them!)

• TB Block - is a German band that has, in my opinion, good taste in the songs they chose to cover and they have done a superb job of covering them.

• The Virtual BEATLES (Our Tribute) - periodically posts new albums of Beatles/post-Beatles songs arranged and performed by Octavio Cavalli and Max Gonzalez. Highly recommended.

Non-Internet Archive Covers

These are cover songs I found at web sites other than the Internet Archive. Many of them came from the original MP3.com and I periodically try to track down the artists to see if they've posted the songs elsewhere.

Phish performs The White Album (October 31, 1994)

I forget where I downloaded this from, but I think perhaps an MP3 blogger uploaded the concert from a downloaded Etree bit torrent. I think.

Okay, in 2015, I found the concert at the The White Album Project: "The White Album Live in Concert". The page has a download button linked to a ZIP file of MP3s; the final track, "Good Night", is not included because it was just the Beatles' studio version of the song. There is a mix video tape of the concert at YouTube: Phish - 10.31.94.

Ashkenaz John Lennon Tribute 2011

The John Lennon Tribute was a 2011 benefit concert for the Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center in Berkeley, CA. A long list of musicians in various permutations performed the songs; exactly who did what can be teased out of a mass of confusing details at the Live Music Archive. The LMA specifies the "Band/Artist" simply as "Ashkenaz", so I've taken the easy way out and done the same.

Ashkenaz Creme Tangerine Benefit 2013

The Creme Tangerine Benefit was a 2013 benefit concert for the Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center in Berkeley, CA. The show consists entirely of George Harrison songs, so the show's title naturally comes from George's song, "Savoy Truffle". (Mostly Harrison songs; throw in Dylan's "If Not For You" and Arlen's and Koehler's "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea" for completeness.) You'll find a long list of the musicians at the Live Music Archive, but no indication of who played on what. As with the 2011 concert above, the LMA specifies the "Band/Artist" simply as "Ashkenaz", so I've done the same.

Baghdad Scuba Review celebrates 4-20

Blake Tedder

Blake Tedder recorded this collection of Beatles songs for his mother. (Also see his Blake Tedder Burn Endowment; scroll down.)

Brain Damaged Eggmen (Disco Biscuits Side Projects) performs a Beatles Set (August 5, 2006)

The Breakfast performs Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (August 20, 2005)

Set II is Sgt. Pepper live ... and the audience had a special treat (!) per the concert notes:

"NOTE: Tons of balloons were dropped at the beginning of Set II. Balloon pops occur on the recording for a good portion of the second set."

Hooked on Cacaphonics

(Good play-on-words title from a handwritten set list!) I couldn't find much information on the Cacaphonics; their bassist, Paul Gural, has a separate Live Music Archive collection, Paulie.

The recordings on the Live Music Archive seem to be them noodling around in a couple of studios in the early 2000s, with a heavy dose of Beatles covers. Despite my saying "noodling around", some of the performances are quite good. It took me a while to figure out that "Don't Forget Meg" was based on Paul McCartney's "Let 'Em In"; the muffled melody sounded familiar, but I had to go through a long list of Paul's songs before I spotted "Let 'Em In" and thought "Eureka!"

Charles Parker's Beatles Arrangements for piano

Arranged for piano and performed by Charles Parker. Originally hosted on his university web site, the songs are now were stored in the Internet Archive.

Charles Parker and others at The Beatles at OSU 2006

The Sgt. Pepper album performed at a benefit concert (2006 newspaper article). The songs are in alphabetical order; I couldn't find the actual set list. (OSU is Oregon State University, not Ohio State University as I mistakenly thought for a few years!)

Charles Parker and others at The Beatles at OSU 2007

The Dark Side of Abbey Road, a mixture of Beatles and Pink Floyd songs, performed at a benefit concert (2007 newspaper article) held at Oregon State University.

Charlie Phillips hosts A 75^th Birthday Tribute to George Harrison at World Cafe Live (April 28, 2018)

Various local—more or less—musicians and bands gathered in Philadelphia, PA to perform various George Harrison songs in a tribute concert at World Cafe Live on the occasion of what would have been George's 75th birthday. (Actually, a couple of months after, probably for scheduling reasons. George was born on February 23, 1943.) The full concert is found under The Mighty Manatees in the Live Music Archive, with the notes giving full credit to the other musicians and bands who participated.

Ekoostik Hookah performs "Beatles Jam" (March 22, 2002)

Flowmotion performs Rubber Soul (October 28, 2011)

God Johnson performs a "To Sir Paul With Love" set (February 13, 2010)

Heavy Pets performs a Beatles set (December 17, 2015)

Hot Buttered Rum performs a Beatles set (December 30, 2007)

Leroy Justice performs Let It Be (October 31, 2008)

Long Strange Night performs Beatles and Grateful Dead covers (November 6, 2015)

The members of Long Strange Night got together to play Beatles and Grateful Dead covers for a one-off benefit concert on November 6, 2015. Apparently surprised that the crowd would enjoy their performance, the band has continued on!

Machine performs "Beatlejam" (January 17, 2002)

Old Shoe performs Let It Be (August 31, 2018)

Robyn Hitchcock performs Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (July 1, 2007)

Performed live, with some other songs thrown in, on the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper.

Rocktopus performs a (mostly) Beatles set (May 22, 2003)

The first track (not shown) is the introduction; the last two tracks (also not shown) are not Beatles songs. The "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" track includes "With A Little Help From My Friends"; my scripts for generating the web page from the MP3 files need a little work.

Rubber Souldiers (October 24, 2009)

Various artists from different bands unite to perform mash-ups of Beatles classics. I picked out one representative concert; be sure to browse through their other concerts for other songs and performances.

Sean Canan's Voodoo Players (November 23, 2016)

Sean Canan's Voodoo Players are a cover band, but not note-for-note covers and not just for one band/artist. This concert is one of their Beatles-themed sets. There are other Beatles-themed sets with different song mixes; check out their collection of concerts for those other sets and for other artists that they've covered. (Unfortunately, you can't always tell from the pictures what artist is the theme of a concert, forcing you to visit individual concert pages. No big deal—it makes for fun exploring!) In this concert, I especially liked the extended segue from "Dig A Pony" to "With A Little Help From My Friends", with the guitar continuing to play the "Dig A Pony" riff while the keyboard started building up the "Friends" chord progression. (I left out "Twist And Shout", which comes after "When I'm Sixty-Four".)

Shakedown Street (October 31, 2011)

Shakedown Street, whose long-time specialty is the Grateful Dead, performs the Beatles' complete Abbey Road album.

theCAUSE performs songs from Rubber Soul and Revolver (April 4, 2014)

Like Sean Canan's Voodoo Players above, theCAUSE covers songs by other bands (especially the Grateful Dead). At their website is an alphabetized list of 330 songs they play—not all in one set!—including their own originals. Browse their collection of concerts for other sets, other Beatles songs, and other artists they've covered.

Tim Palmieri performs a Beatles Tribute set (July 6, 2013)

Live at the Ameribeat Music Festival 2013, Sterling Stage Kampitheater.

Internet Archive Covers

The Beatles were brilliant songwriters and musicians and, not surprisingly, their songs are a staple of many band's live set lists. The cover songs below are found at the Internet Archive and its Live Music Archive.