History Main / TheCoverChangesTheGender

* TheDoors' cover of "Alabama Song" (or [[RefrainFromAssuming "Whiskey Bar"]]) changed "Show us the way to the next pretty boy" to "Show me the way to the next little girl". Originally, the song was sung from the perspective of prostitutes.
** Well, that's a relief. I always assumed the original was from the point of view of a pedophile!

* "When She Loved Me" was originally sung by Sarah McLachlan for ''ToyStory 2'' from the point of view of the doll Jessie, which [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes perfect sense in context]]. Michael Crawford and a few other male singers have [[CoveredUp covered]] it, which makes a whole lot more sense if you think of it as a song about [[LoveHurts lost romantic love]]. The funny thing is, there's still [[LesYay female singers]] covering it, like Jordan Pruitt on Disneymania 5.
* Bruce Springsteen wrote "Because The Night" from a male perspective, but couldn't make it fit with the rest of ''Darkness on the Edge of Town''. He ended up giving it to Patti Smith, who recast it from a female perspective. (Only one (concert) recording of Springsteen's version has ever been commercially released.)

* CabCalloway did a cover of "Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Told Me)" in which he sings about how his mother told him that women are 'two-faced' and will leave him to sing the blues. The odd thing about this version is his mother bashing her own gender, when in the original the mother warns the singer of the dangers of men.

** Sinatra also recorded "The Girl Next Door," an alternate version of "The Boy Next Door" from ''MeetMeInStLouis''.

* Sufficiently old folk songs can go either way. "Black Is The Colour" by... [[CriticalResearchFailure whichever bloke it was originally by]] has been covered by Cara Dillon, who left it straight, and The Corrs, who flipped it. (Cara's is better.)

* Frank Sinatra performed "The Man That Got Away" as "The Gal That Got Away." However, this was averted in Jeff Buckley and RufusWainwright's version. (Then again, Rufus Wainwright is openly gay, so that's not surprising)

* All female covers "(If loving you is wrong) I don't wanna be right" change the point of view from the cheating husband to the other woman.

* Too many Baroque operas to count. Many of these operas were male roles written for castrati, male sopranos who were castrated before puberty so that they would retain their high vocal registers. Since modern society frowns upon castrating little boys, even for the sake of art, females often take over these roles. Mezzo-sopranos are usually favored in casting, leading to the saying among mezzo-soprano's of playing "witches, bitches, and britches".

* Twisted Sister's cover of "Leader of the Pack" reverses both the singer's gender and the relationship's outcome, having Betty die in a car crash rather than Jimmy wipe out fatally on his motorcycle.

* Twisted Sister's cover of "Leader of the Pack" reverses both the singer's gender and the ending, having Betty die in a car crash rather than Jimmy wipe out fatally on his motorcycle.

** It's also averted in The Sisters of Mercy cover of... ABBA's ''"Gimme Gimme Gimme," of all songs.''
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[[folder:Female singer covered by male singer]]
* Elvis performing DustySpringfield's ''You don't have to say you love me'' turns out pretty well, since there's no specific pronouns used. But regardless of gender it does come of with some HoYay subtext
* Tony Bennet did this all over his album "For The Ladies" which was entirely covers of songs made famous by female singers or written for female singers. This is averted in his live shows, however where he feels the original song is more important than the pronouns. And really trying to make Black and Blue about anything other than colorism black women experience doesn't work.
* Frank Sinatra performed "The Man That Got Away" as "The Gal That Got Away." However, this was averted in Jeff Buckley and RufusWainwright's version. (Then again, Rufus Wainwright is openly gay, so that's not surprising)

** Averted by Max Vernon's cover of "I Kissed A Girl": he kept the lyrics, [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning which changed the meaning of the song]].
*** The same goes for ''Attack! Attack!''s cover, and ''[=McFly=]'''s
*** And John Barrowman's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMncnFQkZ5w karaoke attempt]].

* The Jonas Brothers' cover of "[[TheLittleMermaid Poor Unfortunate Souls]]" removes the singer's gender ("I'm a very busy ''person''/And I haven't got all day.") They still keep other lyrics [[UnfortunateImplications ("It's she who holds her tongue who gets a man")]] for some reason.
** But the song (in ''The Little Mermaid'') is sung by Ursula to Ariel: the line they didn't change is about Ariel - not the singer - anyway, so why change it? It's not like a woman saying to a young girl "you're better off keeping your trap shut" is any better than a man saying it.

* Apparently there was a time when it was illegal due to copyright law to change the lyrics of a song, ''even pronouns''- Art Deco released an album called "Can't Help Lovin' that Man" featuring many gentlemen (including Bing Crosby and Ukulele Ike) singing songs intended for women.
* Similar to the Los Campesinos! aversion, the Future Bible Heroes cover of "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League has Claudia Gonson singing the male verse and Stephin Merritt singing the female verse (complete with the line "I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar"). And Chia Pet's version of the same song is a duet between two female vocalists, also without changing any lyrics.

** Think about it as the perspective of a child who just got a new little sibling. A LOT more sense with the female covers then.
*** Or a mother whose daughter has grown up and so forth.

* The Dan Band bases their entire existence around subverting this trope. This all-man band covers nothing but songs originally sung by female artists and never change the gender, but they do throw in gratuitous swearing for fun.
* Most times Blixa Bargeld sings the female part of "Where The Wild Roses Grow" with Nick Cave, there seem to be no pronoun changes from when it was a borderline-SopranoAndGravel duet with Kylie Minogue . Or differences in how the two act when on stage. It makes it either a little more confusing or a little more HoYay. (Though it would work fairly well as a song between two men if it weren't for the fact that a major part of the chorus is "for my name was Eliza Day".)
** This is partly due to Bargeld having sung the female part on the original demo track and the song and Bargeld being such fan favourites that there was no issue performing it like this live. Also, it follows the traditional folk song convention of not changing pronouns. See also: Sinead O'Connor's amazing-yet-mystifying cover of 'I Am Stretched On Your Grave'.
* Averted by a cover of American Pie, but I can't remember by whom or which pronoun it was that was left in.
** Don't know if it's the one you're thinking of, but Madonna's cover didn't change the lyrics.
*** It did leave out some verses, though. Not sure about pronouns, but there is the line "I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck / with a pink carnation and a pickup truck."

** Patti Smith's semi-cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", though, leaves the gender unchanged.

* Alan Jackson's cover of Charly [=McClain=]'s 1981 hit "Who's Cheatin' Who" changes the pronouns so that it's a male singing about a female, instead of vice-versa. (Yes, Charly is a female.)
* Averted by Mr. Bungle performing the Portishead song "Glory Box", with Mike Patton leaving the lyrics (such as "I just wanna be a woman") unchanged.
** Anyone capable of covering that song with a GenderFlip has to get some sort of prize.

* JohnBarrowman's cover of "You're So Vain" averts this trope, leaving in lines like "All the girls thought that they'd be your partner".

* Averted, the White Stripes cover of Jolene, a Dolly Parton song about another woman stealing her man, sung by a man, does not change the perspective gender.

* Averted by RichardCheese, who has no problem asking his bandmate to "lick his pussy", in his cover of ''My Neck, My Back'' (originally by KHIA).
* The Kinston Trio's [[http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/K/kingstontriolyrics/kingstontriosomedaysoonlyrics.htm cover]] of [[http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/bogguss-suzy/someday-soon-4692.html "Someday Soon"]] is gender-flipped, and makes a lot more sense once you know that.
* About half of the songs on the David Arnold Project of JamesBond covers are done like this, but with the lyrics remaining the same, leading to a man singing "Diamonds Are Forever".
* Averted, or rather ignored altogether in the name of camp, in {{Erasure}}'s cover of Abba's "Lay All Your Love On Me" and "Voulez Vous" from the Abba-Esque EP. The lyrics "I wasn't jealous before we met/Now every woman I see is a potential threat" and "I still don't know what you've done with me/A grown-up woman should never fall so easily" from "Lay All Your Love On Me" and "I know what you think/The girl means business, so I'll offer her a drink", originally sung by a woman, are sung unchanged by male singer Andy Bell.
** And don't forget "Gimme gimme gimme (a man after midnight)".
** They've done this with several non-Abba covers, namely The Partridge Family's "Walking in the Rain" and Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High". It's rather amusing to hear a man sing "When I was a little girl, I had a ragdoll/The only doll I've ever owned"...
* Averted in Blixa Bargeld's cover of Peggy Lee's "Johnny Guitar" which uses the same lyrics as the original. As a result, it sounds like a love song from one man to another.

* Bluntly averted by The Killing Moon's cover of AlanisMorissette's rather explicit song "You Oughta Know". Which brings us lines like "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?" sung by a man. The end result is much like a guy being left by his boyfriend for a woman and being seriously pissed off about it (that he's singing about his girlfriend leaving him for another girl gets unlikely with the lines "Would she have your baby?" and "Did you forget about me, Mr.Duplicity?").
** 1,000 Mona Lisas did the same with their cover, which was something of a novelty hit in the 90's.

* Amusingly averted in The AllAmericanRejects cover of "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faBOHMv6SJ8 Womanizer]]"
* Averted hard by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' [[JustForPun Are A Drag]], an entire album of non-gender-flipped covers of originally female songs.

* The trope was averted more frequently in years past, which is (probably) the reason Dolly Parton did so when she covered "Rockytop". ("Once I had a girl on Rockytop, half-bear the other half cat/Wild as a mink but sweet as soda-pop; I still dream about that.")
* The Cowboy Junkies cover of The Beatles' "Run For Your Life" does this, to mixed results: It ''does'' jarringly break the rhyme scheme at times ("you'd better run for your if you can little boy / hide your head in the sand, little boy/ catch you with another ''woman'', that's the end"), but it's still sort of interesting to see their ObsessionSong receive a GenderFlip.

* Used by Forever the Sickest Kids in their cover of Taylor Swift's ''Love Story''.

* Patricia O'Callaghan covered Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man" without changing the lyrics at all, turning a fairly standard love song into a wonderfully lesbian love song.
** Which has since been used as an ''epic'' background song for an International [[SlashFic Femmeslash]] Day music vid.

* Averted by Marissa Nadler's musical treatment of [[EdgarAllanPoe Poe]]'s "''Annabelle Lee''", giving the tale a new LesYay flavor.

* It probably goes without saying that Pansy Division averted this in their version of "Son of A Preacher Man", since that was the whole point of them covering the song in the first place.
* Used by the Cardigans cover of Restless Heart's "The Bluest Eyes in Texas", turning a sad country song about leaving your woman into…well, the same thing, only now [[InSpace with lesbians!]]

* Averted by Sarah Blasko in her covers of "Flame Trees" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". Yes, she sings "this boy's too young to be singing the blues".

* Averted by Cyndi Lauper when she covered Prince's "When You Were Mine". Given the image she was trying to cultivate, this may have been intentional.
** "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was originally written from the male point of view by songwriter Robert Hazard before Cyndi Lauper recorded it.

* Sixpence None the Richer's cover of "There She Goes" kept the original gender pronouns, leading to lots of comment wars on Youtube over whether lead singer Leigh Nash was a lesbian or not. She isn't, she just didn't want to change the lyric.

* Averted by ToriAmos in her covers of "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Angie", "I'm On Fire", and many other songs.
** Of course the whole point of her ''Strange Little Girls'' album was to take songs originally written by men and to cover them from a female perspective.

* Averted by Joan Jett in her LesYay-filled cover of "Crimson & Clover"...although played - er, straight - in her cover of "I Love Rock and Roll."

* Averted in Emily Picha's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Chelsea Hotel No. 2," which adds a whole new level of meaning to "You told me again you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make an exception."
* Averted with AmyWinehouse's cover of "Valerie".

* Anya Marina's version of T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" averts this: The original is mostly addressed to someone in the second person anyway, but she does keep lines like "My chick can have what she want" and "I know you ain't ever had a man like that". The only thing that ''is'' a minor change is "Tell them other broke [[NWordPrivileges brothers]] be quiet".

* Averted in the Save Ferris cover of "Come On Eileen". Which is pretty natural, given a female name is ''in the title''. "You in that dress/Oh, my thoughts, I confess/Verge on dirty..."
* Averted in the Anne Murray cover of "You Won't See Me" by the Beatles. The few occurrences of "girl" are merely omitted, which does not significantly alter the song.
* Averted by The Watson Twins' cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". All the original feminine pronouns are kept intact.
* Judy Collins covered The Incredible String Band's "First Girl I Loved" as "First Boy I Loved".

* This convention resulted in one of the strangest mainstream release pop covers of a traditional folk song ever in Sinead O'Connor's rendition of 'I Am Stretched On Your Grave' which because O'Connor did not change the pronouns becomes O'Connor's dirge to her dead female lover who went to her grave with maidenhood intact as the one opportunity she and O'Connor had to consummate their relationship they didn't.

* Westworld's cover of AlanisMorrisette 's "Uninvited". It helps that the singer Tony Harnell is a high-octave singer.
* Bluntly averted by The Killing Moon's cover of Alanis Morissette's rather explicit song "You Oughta Know". Which brings us lines like "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?" sung by a man. The end result is much like a guy being left by his boyfriend for a woman and being seriously pissed off about it (that he's singing about his girlfriend leaving him for another girl gets unlikely with the lines "Would she have your baby?" and "Did you forget about me, Mr.Duplicity?").

* Averted with Amy Winehouse's cover of "Valerie".

** This is also the case on the BlindGuardian cover. This is made somewhat weirder in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDFmNgmaEe0 music video]], in which the band's singer is dressed in drag. Of course, according to the video the (not-so-desired) "dream" is apparently a bunch of {{Monster Clown}}s, SoYeah ...

* Parodied heavily in an episode of ''MalcolmInTheMiddle'', in which a male singer does a cover of "Papa, Don't Preach", in which he sings "She's keeping my baby!" while pregnant showgirls pose on stage. It's very bit as sexist and disturbing as it sounds.

* "When She Loved Me" was originally sung by Sarah McLachlan for ''ToyStory 2'' from the point of view of the doll Jessie, which [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes perfect sense in context]]. Michael Crawford and a few other male singers have [[CoveredUp covered]] it, which makes a whole lot more sense if you think of it as a song about [[LoveHurts lost romantic love]]. The funny thing is, there's still [[LesYay female singers]] covering it, like Jordan Pruitt on Disneymania 5...OrSoIHeard.

!!!Examples:

Female singer -> Male singer:

Male singer -> Female singer