The 20 Best Elvis Costello Covers

Elvis Costello is responsible for some 600 published songs, but that’s hardly kept him from exploring the catalogs of fellow artists.

Below, in no particular order, we’re taking a look at 20 of the best covers Costello has either recorded officially or performed live. And to be extra clear: this merely scratches the surface. This writer, for example, has witnessed Costello perform covers of things such as “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan and “Domino” by Van Morrison, neither of which appear to have found their way to YouTube yet.

But in the meantime, here are 20 excellent interpretations, Elvis style.

1. “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” the Beatles

Like many musicians of his generation, Costello became fascinated with the Beatles from a young age. He even spent a period of time collaborating with Paul McCartney on over a dozen songs. Below is a studio version of his cover of “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” but you may also want to check out some of his live renditions, which have been mashed with Costello’s own “New Amsterdam.”

 

2. “Edith and the Kingpin,” Joni Mitchell

Costello has been a fan of Joni Mitchell since his school days. “My father gave me my first Joni Mitchell record and I followed everything she did after that,” he told Pitchfork in 2020. “No one is remotely operating on her level.” In 2007, Costello participated in a tribute album to Mitchell, covering “Edith and the Kingpin” from The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

 

3. “She,” Charles Aznavour

Recorded as a single by Charles Aznavour in 1974, “She” served as the theme for the British TV series Seven Faces of Woman. It was a No. 1 hit then, but Costello took his own stab at it in 1999. That version was used in the film Notting Hill starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. It went to No. 19 in the U.K., Costello’s first Top 20 hit in his home country in over a decade.

 

4. “Good Year for the Roses,” George Jones

Country music icon George Jones had a hit with “A Good Year for the Roses” in 1970. A little over a decade later, Costello covered it for his country-themed album Almost Blue. “I do want to say, though,” Costello told Jones himself when speaking with him for Interview magazine in 1992, “that I tend to think of you as an American vocalist — rather than just a country singer — in the same frame of mind as the great singers in other styles of music, like Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.”

 

5. “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down,” Sam and Dave

The original version of “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” was recorded by Sam & Dave in 1967 and released as the B-side to their own cover of Sam Cooke’s “Soothe Me.” In 1980, Costello and his band the Attractions recorded it for the album Get Happy!!, taking it from a slow ballad to an upbeat, easy-to-dance-to number. It was a big hit in the U.K., staying near the top of the chart for several weeks.

 

6. “The Weight,” the Band

Costello was caught a few times covering “The Weight” by the Band, including in the clip below, which also features Nick Lowe, Allen Toussaint, Ray LaMontagne, Richard Thompson and original Band member Levon Helm. Costello once ran into Helm and Band bassist Rick Danko on a New York City fire escape in the mid ’80s. “Dumbstruck in their presence, [I was] running off at the mouth,” he wrote in his memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, “the way people sometimes do when they are excited.”

 

7. “You’re No Good,” Linda Ronstadt

Frankly no one will be able to top Linda Ronstadt’s original vocal on “You’re No Good,” but Costello gave it his own spin for his 1989 album Spike. This version, however, would not come out until the 2001 bonus disc was released. Ronstadt herself has covered several of Costello’s songs, including “Alison.”

“Five years ago,” Costello wrote in 2019, “shortly before an encore performance of ‘Alison,’ I told the audience at the Hollywood Bowl, that it was Linda Ronstadt’s rendition of that song – which was featured on her big hit album Living in the U.S.A. – that kept petrol in our tour bus at a time when we were sharing double bill with everyone from Talking Heads to Eddie Money for a $1.99 ticket.”

 

8. “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” Nina Simone

A number of artists have done covers of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” first recorded by Nina Simone in 1964. The Animals had a hit with it less than a year later. Costello got a hold of it for his 1986 album King of America, describing it as a “slow, violent version” in liner notes.

“[W]e borrowed Michael Blair from Tom Waits band to add a marimba part and the record was complete,” he wrote. “This may seem ironic as I attacked the song with a vocal capacity that Tom might have rejected as being too hoarse.”

 

9. “Sugaree,” Jerry Garcia

Bear with us here. In the below video from 2022, you’ll find Costello performing an excellent rendition of Jerry Garcia’s “Sugaree,” but you’ll also find covers of three Grateful Dead songs: “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Wharf Rat” and “Ramble on Rose.” And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also covers of Neil Young‘s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and “Dance Dance Dance.” More on Young later…

 

10. “I Still Miss Someone,” Johnny Cash

Not only did Costello record Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone” during the sessions for 1991’s Mighty Like a Rose — combined with George Jones’ “The Last Town I Painted” — he also did the song live a few times as a duet with Emmylou Harris.

 

11. “Running Out of Fools,” Aretha Franklin

When Aretha Franklin appeared on The Cliff Richard Show in 1970, 16-year-old Costello was watching. “After a moment like that you’re never the same again,” he told The Guardian in 2022. Costello’s cover of Franklin’s “Running Out of Fools” appeared on 1995’s Kojak Variety, which featured a whole bunch of other great covers, too.

 

12. “So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” the Byrds

The thing that seemed to draw Costello to the Byrds was their apparent metamorphosis over a pretty short period of time. “The band itself, the Byrds, were the band that I’d followed and like a lot of people, I suppose you might say they were an American vocal group that answered the Beatles in some ways,” he said on Nights With Alice Cooper in 2022. “And then they became, like, a psychedelic group, almost in a way — the 5D album — and by the time they got to the Sweetheart of the Rodeo, that was quite a shock.”

 

13. “I Threw It All Away,” Bob Dylan

At one point in the late ’70s, Costello found himself at a Bob Dylan concert after Barbara Streisand couldn’t make it. He took her place and was invited backstage. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Dylan said to him. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Costello replied.

Costello has covered a number of Dylan songs over the years, both live and on records, but his version of “I Threw It All Away” is particularly captivating.

 

14. “Brilliant Disguise,” Bruce Springsteen

Every so often over the years, Costello and Bruce Springsteen have shared the stage. In 2003, Costello contributed a cover of “Brilliant Disguise” to the album Light of Day: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen. “I wanted to somehow make magic out of the things around me the way he did in those very early songs,” Costello once explained, citing the Boss’ earliest records as having a profound influence on his own band. “We wanted to be like that, you know. We didn’t know how to be like that.”

 

15. “Long Distance Love,” Little Feat

On the night that his first son was born in 1975, Costello went to see Little Feat in concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London. (His then-wife Mary had insisted he go and that he’d have time to be back for the birth.) “The show was everything I could have wished for,” Costello wrote in his memoir. “The group felt funkier and wilder than their records, but the delicate weirdness of a song like ‘Sailin’ Shoes’ and the tenderness of ballads like ‘Willin” came through loud and clear without being bent out of shape.” Many years later, Costello covered “Long Distance Love” for a tribute album to Lowell George.

 

16. “Baby, It’s You,” the Shirelles

In 1987, Costello released a compilation album called Out of Our Idiot, featuring an array of previously unreleased recordings and demos dating back to 1979. One of them was a duet of “Baby, It’s You” with Nicke Lowe they’d put to tape in 1984.

 

17. “Tell Me Why,” Neil Young

Before Costello covered those Neil Young songs in 2022, he performed a cover of “Tell Me Why” from 1970’s After the Gold Rush at the annual Bridge School Benefit in 2010. (Young and his late wife Pegi organized the event every year for speech-impaired children from 1987 to 2016.)

 

18. “Wild Night,” Van Morrison

Costello has done a few Van Morrison covers, including “Domino,” “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)” and, as evidenced below, “Wild Night.”

 

19. “Beginning to See the Light,” the Velvet Underground

Costello clearly relates to the Velvet Underground in relation to the New York band’s attitude toward commercial success. “You know the story about the Velvet Underground?” he said to The Daily Beast in 2018. “They didn’t sell any records, but then everybody who did buy the record started a band. That’s legend, at least, whether or not it’s real, there’s some sort of truth to it. There’s music that resonates in ways that has nothing to do with sales.”

 

20. “Purple Rain,” Prince

Costello once asked Prince for permission to cover his song “Pop Life” for a compilation album, a request Prince swiftly turned down. That did little to squash Costello’s appreciation of Prince — here’s a clip of him performing “Purple Rain” in 2013.