What is a Cover Song? Definition, History & Famous Examples

A cover song is a new performance and recording of a song that was previously recorded by someone else. The cover artist performs the same composition — the same melody and, usually, the same lyrics — but creates an entirely new recording in their own voice and arrangement. The original recording is not used.

That last point distinguishes a cover from a remix (which rearranges the original recording), a sample (which incorporates a piece of it), and an interpolation (which re-records a portion for use in a new composition). In a cover, the composition is borrowed; the audio is entirely new.

Cover, Remix, Sample, Interpolation — What's the Difference?

These four terms are frequently confused because they all involve one artist using another artist's work.

Cover: A completely new recording of an existing song. Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" is a cover — she sang the song Dolly Parton wrote, with a new arrangement and her own voice. The original Dolly Parton recording is not in Houston's version.

Remix: Takes the original recording and rearranges it. When a DJ creates a "club remix" of a pop song, they're using audio from the original session — the actual vocals the original artist recorded. A remix requires permission from whoever owns the master recording, typically the label.

Sample: Uses a recognizable fragment of an existing recording in a new song. The famous bass line from Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" appears in Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" — that's sampling, and it required (in theory) clearance from the master owners.

Interpolation: Re-records a melodic or lyrical fragment from another song for use in a new composition. Ariana Grande's "7 Rings" interpolates the melody from "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music — the original recording was not used, but the melody was, requiring a composition license.

For legal and practical purposes, the key distinction is whether you're using the original recording (remix, sample) or only the composition (cover, interpolation). Covers only require a mechanical license for the composition — you don't need anything from the record label.

Why Some Covers Become More Famous Than the Original

Some of the most celebrated recordings in music history are covers. A few patterns explain why certain covers surpass the original.

The artist brings context the original didn't have. Johnny Cash's recording of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" in 2002 was released when Cash was 70 years old, dying, and had outlived most of his generation. The lyrics — "I hurt myself today / to see if I still feel" — meant something different coming from him. Trent Reznor himself said Cash's version "was his song now." The original was a young man's expression of despair; the cover was an old man's reckoning with mortality.

The cover finds the song's natural register. Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" is widely considered the definitive version, though Leonard Cohen wrote and recorded it first. Cohen's version was sparse and folk-like. Buckley's arrangement — that guitar tuning, his falsetto reaching into the lyrics — found the emotional center the song contained all along. Cohen's own take on what Buckley did: "He understood my song as an act of worship."

The cover recontextualizes the original. Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is so definitive that Dylan himself has performed it in Hendrix's arrangement ever since. Hendrix transformed a folk narrative into something elemental. Dylan reportedly said he felt Hendrix had taken the song somewhere he hadn't imagined.

The cover matches an artist's strengths perfectly. Aretha Franklin's "Respect" was originally recorded by Otis Redding as a plea from a man to a woman. Franklin reversed the power dynamic and turned it into an assertion. That inversion wasn't just reinterpretation — it was recontextualization that resonated with a generation. The song became the anthem Redding's version never could have been.

A Brief History of the Cover Song

The concept of a "cover" barely existed before rock and roll. In the early 20th century, it was completely normal for multiple artists to record the same song simultaneously — there was no expectation that any song belonged to a particular performer. Tin Pan Alley songwriters made their living selling compositions to publishers who then sold sheet music; recordings were an afterthought.

The practice of established acts recording versions of emerging artists' songs specifically to reach broader audiences became known in the 1950s as "covering." When Bill Haley covered "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in 1954 — smoothing out the edges of Big Joe Turner's original for white radio audiences — the practice took on a more uncomfortable dimension that ran alongside the broader dynamics of early rock and roll.

As artists in the 1960s increasingly wrote their own material, the cultural weight of covering shifted. The Beatles covered early rock and roll and R&B songs early in their career, but by the mid-60s, performing your own material became a marker of artistic seriousness. The cover became something you did when it was exceptional — Jimi Hendrix choosing Dylan, Joe Cocker choosing the Beatles — rather than routine.

Today, covers serve several distinct functions: tribute performances, viral moments (YouTube covers have launched careers), film and TV soundtrack placements that need a fresh take on a familiar song, and the perpetual tradition of live performance where even stadium-filling acts play songs they didn't write.

Notable Covers That Redefined the Original

How to Record Your Own Cover

Get the composition right. Before you record a cover for release, you need a mechanical license for the composition. In the US, this is handled through the Harry Fox Agency (songfile.com) or services like DistroKid's cover licensing. The statutory rate is approximately 9.1 cents per copy for songs under five minutes. For streaming, services like DistroKid handle mechanical royalties in their distribution agreements.

Don't use the original recording. This is the most important technical distinction. Your cover must be entirely your own recording — your voice, your instruments, your studio performance. If you use any audio from the original (as backing track, as a sample, as a loop), you've crossed from cover territory into sampling, which requires master rights clearance from the record label. That's significantly more complex and expensive.

Credit the original songwriters. Every distribution platform and streaming service requires accurate songwriter credits. This isn't optional — it's how composers get paid mechanical royalties when your cover streams. Get the official songwriter information from a service like ASCAP, BMI, or SoundExchange.

What you can do with the arrangement. A mechanical license gives you the right to record the composition as written, with your own arrangement. You can change the tempo, the key, the instrumentation, and the production style. What you can't do is significantly alter the melody or lyrics — that creates a derivative work requiring explicit permission from the publisher.

For YouTube specifically, the situation is different from commercial release. See the full guide on cover songs on YouTube for how Content ID works and what it means for monetization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I record a cover of any song? In most countries, yes — as long as the song has been commercially released. In the US, mechanical licenses for covers are compulsory, meaning the publisher cannot refuse to license a commercially released song. They can set the rate, but they can't block you from covering it.

Does a cover need to sound different from the original? No. You can do a note-for-note faithful reproduction. The only requirements are that it be your own recording and that you have a mechanical license.

Who owns a cover recording? You own the master recording (your specific performance). The original songwriters continue to own the composition. This means someone could theoretically cover your cover — and they'd need a mechanical license from the original songwriters, not from you.

Is a live cover different from a recorded cover? Live performances in venues are typically covered by blanket licenses (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC in the US; similar performing rights organizations elsewhere). The venue pays for those licenses, not you individually. Recording and distributing a live cover brings it back into mechanical license territory.

Can I make money from a cover? Yes, if properly licensed. Your streams, downloads, and physical sales generate revenue for you — the mechanical royalties you owe to the original songwriter are handled through your mechanical license or distribution service.

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Create Backing Tracks for Your Cover

If you're working on a cover, StemSplit can extract the instrumental track from the original recording for reference and practice — hearing the original arrangement in isolation helps you decide what to keep and what to change in your own version.

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