10 Weirdest Cover Songs In Rock Music History
6. Working Class Hero - Green Day
As Green Day worked their way into the '00s, it looked like they were ready to reach the mantle of rock and roll legends. After already winning over the pop punk crowd all the way back in the '90s, the arrival of American Idiot saw them getting even more grandiose in their presentation, with songs that went on for 9 minutes and told a story just like the concept records they loved as kids. And while we're at it, why not turn in a cover from one of the greatest songwriters the rock world has ever known?
If you go back and listen to the original Working Class Hero, it's a very sparse arrangement for John Lennon, mostly being played on an acoustic guitar as he lets the lyrics take center stage on the rest of the song. Green Day know not to take away from the message of the song though by gradually letting everything unfold. While it starts out pretty similar to Lennon's original, each verse keeps building and building until we reach an amazing guitar break from Billie Joe Armstrong.
And it would seem that this kind of trend became influential later down the line, with Disturbed pretty much going in the same direction almost a decade after this with their take on the Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. It may have sounded daring at the time, but this is the result of a band that knows the legacy they have to live up to and is willing to put their heart and soul into it.