Which cover versions improve on the original?

Bongwater - The Drum
Galaxies 500 - Listen the snow is falling
Butthole Surfers - Hurdy Gurdy Man

Nico "These Days"

Is it technically a cover if it comes first?

Basically EVERY cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is an improvement on the original, which I just heard a couple years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXYPb0rrwbA

But apparently Peggy and Ewan MacColl were especially down on Roberta Flack's definitive take, so fuck 'em.

It also applies to “it’s all over now baby blue”, every cover I’ve heard tends to improve on the original.

13th floor elevators and Them versions being the peak so far.

Dylan version is so… soulless. You’d never guess it’s one of his best written songs if you went by the original version.

Even the Anonhi version which sounds as if recorded on a potato is better.

In a similar vein, does anyone stan for Leonard Cohen's original version of Hallelujah?

Rod Stewart – Tom Traubert's Blues
Rod Stewart – Downtown Train
Bruce Springsteen – Jersey Girl

(hmmm, I see a pattern developing here)

Fairport Convention – Percy's Song
Nick Cave – Death Is Not the End
Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
10,000 Maniacs – Everyday Is Like Sunday
10,000 Maniacs – Hello In There
Tindersticks – If You're Looking for a Way Out
This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren

Nina Simone - Feeling Good (the original Broadway musical version ("The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd") of the song is...uhh...fairly unremarkable)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPdoWp-PHFU

Nina Simone also makes the most definitive version of Sinnerman. I wasn’t even aware it was a cover until recently via another thread on ilm.

Nina Simone's "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" is also the definitive version IMHO.

I still love the original but boy is this one smooth take on this song

kali uchis - venus as a boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47oiB_quDf8

Nina Simone does a lot of reinventions of very white singer songwriter stuff on the material I have collected as Sugar In My bowl.
Have found that an odd companion to black militancy which I thought she was about at the time.
BUt the versions are really good from what I've heard of them and I'm really glad to have them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgZ3B-2q-g