Covering a big song is always risky, particularly if you know that the original artist is going to hear what you’ve done with it.
Kelly Clarkson, though, has made a habit of it, with the much-loved Kellyoke section of her TV show having seen her tackle songs by everyone from Depeche Mode to Sabrina Carpenter.
This week, Sheryl Crow got the Kellyoke treatment, as Clarkson covered the singer-songwriter’s breakthrough 1994 hit, All I Wanna Do. And it’s fair to say that Crow was impressed, to the extent that she was happy to admit that the inaugural American Idol winner turned talkshow host had - talent show judge cliche alert - made the song her own.
“Good grief Kelly Clarkson could sing the damn phone book!” Crow wrote in response to a post of the performance on Instagram. “I love this version better than mine!!”
Clarkson certainly nails the relaxed vocal delivery. The lyrics to All I Wanna Do were taken from a poem by Wyn Cooper, Fun, which the song’s co-producer Bill Bottrell is said to have discovered in a book.
Crow adapted them, and the rest - including huge sales and a Record of the Year Grammy in 1995 - is history.
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