10 Great Covers by Bryan Ferry

In 2022, Bryan Ferry was asked by The Guardian about which covers of Roxy Music songs he enjoys the most.

“Grace Jones’ version of ‘Love Is the Drug,’ is very cool,” he replied. “She worked with Sly and Robbie at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where we recorded some of Avalon. It grooves much better than our version.”

That’s a wonderful compliment coming from someone like Ferry, who, in addition to recording plenty of his own songs, has spent decades covering songs by other artists and breathing entirely new life into them. Roxy Music’s 1981 cover of John Lennon‘s “Jealous Guy,” for example, was a No. 1 hit in the U.K. and was evidently so compelling to people that it ended up pushing Lennon’s original recording up the charts.

Below in no particular order, we’ve gathered 10 covers recorded by Ferry that highlight his talent for interpretation.

1. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”
From: These Foolish Things (1973)
Originally By: Bob Dylan

We simply must start this list with Ferry’s cover of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” one of many, many Bob Dylan covers he’s recorded over the years. (In 2007, he released an entire album of them called Dylanesque.) “I chose some really nice songs on that first solo album, These Foolish Things,” Ferry recalled to Rolling Stone in 2024. “The first one, ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ that’s a Bob Dylan song, great lyrics, and as a singer, I like to sing words. That was maybe the best cover I ever did — great enthusiasm and gusto.”

 

2. “Sympathy for the Devil”
From: These Foolish Things (1973)
Originally By: The Rolling Stones

Ferry gave Mick Jagger a run for his money with this cover of “Sympathy for the Devil,” which also appeared on Ferry’s debut solo album in 1973. This version swings right along with that horn section, creating an effortlessly cool, slightly spooky vibe — that cackle at the four minute mark! If the Cheshire Cat sang rock ‘n’ roll it might sound like this.

“‘Sympathy’ is a really outstanding song, it’s lyrically surprising and it gets going and grooves along,” Ferry told The Telegraph in 2012. “The percussion is great on the Stones version, that was what really stood out to me first. … I added women’s voices singing the ‘hooh hoohs,’ whereas they just did it themselves, but it’s very effective like that. We had horns and lots of things going on, quite a big band, fun times. Still, I much prefer their version to mine.”

 

3. “She’s Leaving Home”
From: Soundtrack to 1976’s All This and World War II
Originally By: The Beatles

Ferry stuck pretty close to the Beatles’ original arrangement for this recording of “She’s Leaving Home.” And yet, the very nature of Ferry’s elegant vibrato makes it quite different. This cover appeared on the soundtrack to the 1976 film All This and World War II, a musical documentary that included Beatles covers by — in addition to Ferry – the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Status Quo, Peter Gabriel and many more.

 

4. “Crazy Love”
From: Soundtrack to 1988’s She’s Having a Baby
Originally By: Van Morrison

Van Morrison and Ferry are two of the most distinctive voices in rock ‘n’ roll. There’s a little bit of ’80s cheese to Ferry’s cover of “Crazy Love,” but the delivery is spot on. And whoever played that guitar solo? Well done.

 

5. “Back to Black”
From: Soundtrack to 2013’s The Great Gatsby
Originally By: Amy Winehouse

Imagine a cover of Amy Winehouse’s famous “Back to Black” but as a jazzy, 1920s style song. Imagine no longer because Ferry did exactly that for the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. “Everybody knows the Amy Winehouse version of this song, and I think this is a very interesting interpretation,” the movie’s executive music supervisor Anton Monsted said to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013. “It plunges you further into this particular kind of lovesickness.”

6. “Finger Poppin'”
From: Another Time, Another Place (1974)
Originally By: Ike and Tina Turner

Why does this cover of “Finger Poppin'” sound like something from The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Ferry’s appreciation for Ike and Tina Turner, who recorded the original of this song, goes back decades. “There was a record that [Phil Spector] did with Ike and Tina Turner [that] wasn’t that big in America but was huge in Europe called ‘River Deep, Mountain High,'” Ferry explained to Pitchfork in 2013. “There was this guy at Newcastle who had a sports car with one of those 45 players, like a cassette player, in his car. We would drive around Newcastle playing that monster endlessly, again and again.”

 

7. “What Goes On”
From: The Bride Stripped Bare (1978)
Originally By: The Velvet Underground

Ferry admired Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground a great deal, and he did justice with their 1969 song “What Goes On.” “I think that Reed had a wonderful talent for combining the energy of rock music with a truly literary sensibility,” Ferry said to Rolling Stone following Reed’s passing in 2013. “Like all major artists, he was also totally fearless in exploring new and challenging forms and ideas, regardless of critical or public expectations. He ranks with Hendrix and Dylan as an artist who has shaped the course of modern music and social attitudes in a profound way.”

 

8. “Take Me to the River”
From: The Bride Stripped River (1978)
Originally By: Al Green

In 2013, Ferry was a guest DJ on NPR, where he came prepared with a playlist of some of his personal favorite songs — one of them was Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” An excellent choice, no doubt, but we’d argue that his 1978 cover of Green’s “Take Me to the River” is also a standout track. Nothing will top the original, but this one sure is smooth.

 

9. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
From: Taxi (1993)
Originally By: The Shirelles

The original “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, is just about as Brill Building as it gets. But Ferry’s version puts a whole new sense of longing to it — his voice set on top of an ethereal soundscape. “There are certain voices that, as soon as you hear them, you’re hooked,” Ferry said to Pitchfork in 2013. “Leadbelly was one for me, and Shirley of the Shirelles, and Ronnie Spector. I love women’s voices, actually — I haven’t got much time for men’s voices, except for a few: Elvis, Sinatra, Lennon, Otis Redding.”

 

10. “Song to the Siren”
From: Olympia (2010)
Originally By: Tim Buckley

There’s quite the impressive array of musicians on this cover of “Song to the Siren,” including David Gilmour, Brian Eno and Jonny Greenwood. “I’d never heard the [original] Tim Buckley version until fairly recently,” Ferry admitted to The Quietus in 2010. “When I made it I’d only heard This Mortal Coil. I remember the video was very pretty and I said, God, that’s a great song, I want to do that one day. It turned into quite an opera really. It was a challenge – the sea, the ocean, whalesong – there are so many different sounds on that.”