999,948: Joe Cocker — I Think It's Going to Rain Today

Man, that Randy Newman fella. When he writes lyrics about broken windows, empty hallways, the frozen smiles of the fashionably repellent, all under a "pale dead moon in a sky streaked with gray" and highlighted with the bitterly sarcastic remark that "human kindness is overflowing"—that Newman guy plays the song like a dirge. Just him, singing barely above a whisper, his piano, and some mournful strings he might have lifted off Aaron Copland.

Enter Joe Cocker: blue-eyed soul stirrer, song-interpreter extraordinaire, seizure impersonator; undisputed self-appointed master of the magniloquent cover song. He picks up this thing, this "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", weighs its heft, sniffs it for any unexploited opportunity to add, I dunno, a gospel choir. Some fatback drum fills. A bunch of sweet electric guitar licks. "I see what you're trying to do here, Randy," he says, swaying a little punchily, "But it's just a little lacking in the ol' Cockertude. Let me put my inimitable adaptive stamp on this frail little thing and see what we get. I like this bit with the strings, so let's run with that!"

And ta-da! Now we got an upbeat rocker! About unheeded signs to help the needy! Stuffed full of hopeful string flourishes and self-indulgent tempo changes—as if to rub it in Newman's face, the bridge is slowed to the same speed as the original, with the same exact swelling orchestral melody backing up the lines about treating your friends like a kicked tin can. Then—POW!—gospel choir launches into a brand new verse about the morning sun rising. That's how you make a song about human kindness, Newman!

I Think It's Going To Rain Tod...