When the Beatles didn’t have enough of their own songs to fill an album they looked to their rock’n'roll heroes like Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, and pinched a few of their songs. For a long time John Lennon’s raucous version of the Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist and Shout’ was the band’s barnstorming show closer.

They aren’t alone. The cover version has been the staple of most musicians and bands as they grow into their sound, experimenting with how they can bring their musical inventiveness to another artist’s song and make it their own – perhaps even finding something new in it.

The cover’s aim is not to improve on the original – although many would probably prefer the Byrds’ tunefully jangly ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ to Bob Dylan’s wailing if poetic original. But imitation does allow the group or artist to pay homage: witness the Clash’s affection for reggae with their punky take on Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’.

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