3 Songs... that are recent, interesting, cover versions

Amanda Palmer released her cover of Sinead O'Connor's  'The Last Day of Our Acquaintance' a week or two after O'Connor's death. The original version of the song featured on the album I do not want what I haven't got, and has also been covered by Michael Stipe.

Palmer's version is at once a salute to O'Connor, and the power of her songwriting, and very much her own version. Like O'Connor, Palmer is no stranger to rage, and to articulating rage, but it's interesting to compare how that rage is expressed in her version compared to this live version of O'Connor's. 

The song is a breakup tale, but it's not about the actual breakup itself so much as the paperwork that comes with it, and the sense that the love doesn't die in the bedroom so much as in "somebodies office" much later on. 

Both versions are absolutely shattering, and well worth a listen. 

'Zombie', an anti-war song originally alluding to The Troubles in Ireland is perhaps one of The Cranberries more obscure hits, but recent events have seen it re-enter the lower end of the UK singles chart, where it may well stay for some time. The most well known of The Cranberries hits is the more wide eyed 'Dreams', which has been covered a number of times, including by Japanese Breakfast and, most recently, Norwegian/Irish artist Yune Pinku.

Pinku's 'Dreams (Rework)' is a delightfully idiosyncratic take on the original, replacing the guitars with a slightly glitchy, fragile electro soundscape typical of Pinku's work. She really makes the song her own, her own Irish tones at once echoing and departing from those of Delores O'Riordan on the original song. 

Desire's cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's sumptuous Trevor Horn produced epic synth power ballad 'The Power Of Love' is at once equally atmospheric and, somehow, much more glacial and sadder in tone than the original. 

This might be because the Canadian band were commissioned to cover the song for the soundtrack to the Fien Troch film Holly, which is due for release on the 22nd November. The soundtrack doesn't include any other pop music, or music with a vocal, and 'The Power Of Love' will play out over the credits.