History Main / TheCoverChangesTheGender

* Music/KTTunstall's cover of the Music/JacksonFive's "I Want You Back" has her singing "Let me show you ''girl''/that I know wrong from right" [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer to the apparent delight of many female fans]], especially following her ''Eye to the Telescope'' album on which [[MistakenForGay she's wearing a pair of rainbow suspenders/braces and sings endlessly about loving women]].

* Music/KTTunstall's cover of the Jackson5's "I Want You Back" has her singing "Let me show you ''girl''/that I know wrong from right" [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer to the apparent delight of many female fans]], especially following her ''Eye to the Telescope'' album on which [[MistakenForGay she's wearing a pair of rainbow suspenders/braces and sings endlessly about loving women]].

* Music/ShirleyBassey's cover of ''Ben E. King'''s "I Who Have Nothing" is another perspective-flipped example.

* The cover of Music/PublicEnemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" by ''Tricky'' uses a female vocalist and doesn't change the lyrics, leading to Martina Topley-Bird repeatedly referring to herself as "a brother" and "a black man," and '''[[WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead BEAVIS]]''' called her on it.

** [[https://youtu.be/wJStTqPmcMY Tom Gross]] also did a cover like that (only with the minor change to leave out the word "cousin"). It starts with a scene with a preacher from a Christian church giving an [[HeteronormativeCrusader outright homophobic preachment]]. The whole cover has a [[{{Gayngst}} much more dramatic undertone]].

* In Music/DonnaSummer's version of "[=MacArthur Park=]", "Spring was never waiting for us, girl" became "Spring was never waiting for us, still (it ran one step ahead)"

* In Stars on 54's cover of "[[Music/GordonLightfoot If You Could Read My Mind]]" for the film ''Film/FiftyFour'', "the hero would be me" becomes "the hero would be you".

* Music/LydiaLunch's version of Music/ClassicIV's "Spooky" changes the lines "spooky little girl" and "when a fella looks at you" to "spooky little boy" and "when a girl looks at you." (Music/DanielAsh's version also uses the "when a girl looks at you" variation while keeping the "spooky little girl" line to add a bit of LesYay.)

* Amii Stewart's [[CoveredUp cover version]] of Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood" has her telling the partner rather than herself to knock on wood. Mary Griffin's version, featured in the film ''{{Studio 54}}'', leaves the lyrics unchanged.

* Music/OrchestralManoeuvresInTheDark's version of "Whole Again"[[note]]co-written for Atomic Kitten by OMD members Andy McCluskey and Stewart Kershaw, as well as Bill Padley and Jem Godfrey[[/note]] goes gender neutral with "and if you see me with another ''one''" instead of ''man''.

* Strangely done by two Har Mar Superstar songs originally intended for other artists: he wrote "Girls Only" and "Tall Boy" with the intention of giving them to Film/TheCheetahGirls and Music/BritneySpears respectively. When both declined, he put out his own versions without any lyrical changes. The former is about a girls' night out and finds him singing about having "the cutest little cuticles". The latter is ''technically'' about large cans of beer, but it's also [[IntercourseWithYou very innuendo laden]] ("where's my tall boy?/ to satisfy my needs/ feel like drinking/ so come on get inside of me").

* "Triad" was originally a CutSong from Music/TheByrds' ''Notorious Byrd Brothers'' album, then David Crosby gave it to Music/JeffersonAirplane to record - the original lyrics had a male narrator suggesting a two woman, one man threesome, while the Jefferson Airplane version changes some pronouns to change it to two men and a woman. Interestingly, the Jefferson Airplane version still mentions "your long hair flowing"; since both versions were recorded in TheSixties, that description could apply to someone of either gender.

* Music/LadyGaga:
** Her version of [[Music/{{Coldplay}} "Viva La Vida"]] leaves the gender the same in the first few verses, but she eventually ''screams'' "who would ever want to be...'''QUEEN'''!" and even changes "St. Peter" to "St. Mary" at a few points. [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Lady Gaga being Lady Gaga]], these are some of the more ''normal'' [[ThrowItIn changes]].
** Her version of [[Music/EltonJohn "Your Song"]] imagines being "a ''woman'' who makes potions in a travelling show".

* Music/TheJonasBrothers' cover of "[[Disney/TheLittleMermaid Poor Unfortunate Souls]]" removes the singer's gender ("I'm a very busy ''person''/And I haven't got all day.") It also replaces the gendered term "witch" with "kind of strange".

* The many, many male "[[{{Disney/Frozen}} Let It Go]]" covers on Website/YouTube, which often changing "girl" to "boy" and "And it looks like I'm the queen" to "And it looks like I'm the king".

* Music/JonathanYoung's cover of [[Disney/{{Frozen}} "Let It Go"]]. "Don't let them in, don't let them see[=/=]Be the gentleman you always have to be."

* In recent years, since Music/AshleyTisdale did a cover of "Kiss The Girl" in 2006, it's become common for that song to be sung by women. Before that, in TheNineties it was a rarely covered song and it was done by men, but look on Website/YouTube and you'll find cover songs of "Kiss The Girl" done by women outnumber those done by men by about 20 to 1. It's gotten to where people forget that it was sung by Sebastian and not Ariel in ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. The unusual thing is, the words entirely remain the same, but the connotations completely change, when sung by a man it's always a third person urging to just follow his heart and kiss the girl he loves, when sung by a woman it becomes a not-so-subtle hint to the guy she likes that she's growing impatient with his hesitation.

* The cover of [[Disney/{{Hercules}} "Zero To Hero"]] by Music/JonathanYoung and Savannah Stuckmeyer doesn't change the pronouns, which makes sense considering the subject matter is Hercules. What ''is'' hilarious is all the lines where the Muses are DistractedByTheSexy are sung in Young's BassoProfundo.

* For ''Theate/MammaMia'', the song "Does Your Mother Know" is sung in a female perspective, while the original ABBA version is in a male perspective.

* [[Series/TheXFactor Danyl]] [[BiTheWay Johnson]] did this in his cover of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from ''Theatre/{{Dreamgirls}}'', prompting a sarcastic comment concerning whether it was necessary by one of the show's judges, effectively outing him on live TV.
* The Music/{{Mika}} version of "Poker Face" (it's all downhill from here, folks) changes the intermittent "she's got me like nobody" (fast version, referring to Music/LadyGaga)/"he's got me like nobody, she's got me like nobody" (slow version, referring to [[BiTheWay her lovers]]) to the more neutral "you've got me like nobody," and replaces some of the uses of "he" in the lyrics with "you" to match...''some''.

* Electric Youth's cover of Anuna's "If All She Has is You" implies that the protagonist and her ex are either [[LesYay lesbian]] or [[BiTheWay bisexual]].

* The film ''Film/MammaMiaHereWeGoAgain'' changes the titular instructor of Music/{{ABBA}}'s "When I Kissed the Teacher" from male to female, but does not do likewise with the singer ([[spoiler:Donna]]), leading to a BiTheWay situation.

** Similarly, Kalvin Jarvis's cover of Music/DuaLipa's New Rules. An interesting case, since one of the changes, "You're only gonna wake up in his bed" to "She's only gonna wake up in your bed", both changes the scenario and doesn't: the narrator is telling himself not to bring his ex home, not to not go home with his ex, but like the original it's the man bringing the woman home. In the next line, he does the opposite, keeping the narrator's, well, position the same to preserve the wordplay.

* In Music/KirstyMacColl's cover of Music/BillyBragg's "A New England" the first verse changes "People ask when will I grow up to be a man/But all the girls I loved at school are already pushing prams" to "People ask when will I grow up to understand/Why all the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams" and "I put you on a pedestal, they put you on the pill" to "I put you on a pedestal, you put me on the pill". The line in the chorus "I'm just looking for another girl" becomes "Are you looking for another girl?"

* Music/BruceSpringsteen 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 Music/PattiSmith, who recast it from a female perspective on her album ''Music/{{Easter}}''. Springsteen released a live concert recording of the song, however, and he included a studio version of it on ''The Promise,'' his 2010 album of ''Darkness'' outtakes.