I've been concentrating on my cover songs and standards pages at Squidoo, of late, and today it was time to update my Mack the Knife lens. As usual, I was moved to listen to many versions of the song, mostly from well-known swing artists and crooners. I did, however, come across some unusual versions of Mac's story that I wanted to share with you all.

Sting most immediately caught my attention, in a more traditional arrangement than the one I've included below from Gerald Price in an off-Broadway production that sounds more like Sinatra than Kurt Weil had intended the stage production to play. The Doors sound exactly like The Doors and The Psychedelic Furs are also true to form, here. Cab Calloway offers a short but enjoyable trip through Mac the Knife's story, with full horns and his usual flair. I've declined to include the better-known Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and Ella Fitzgerald versions here, as you can hear them just about anywhere.

In working on my lens about the blues standard Stagger Lee or Stack O'Lee, I was kindly informed by 2Eklectik that I'd completely missed Stagger Lee and Billy's appearance in The Clash's Wrong 'Em Boyo.

Imagine my chagrin at that, and then further at discovering that The Clash was covering a song from a Jamaican ska band The Rulers, who recorded Wrong Emboyo in 1967. The Clash came along and put their version on "London Calling" in 1979. Finally, Buck-O-Nine took ahold of the song and covered it again in 1995. For me, these versions take ska from its roots straight through into modern ska-punk, demonstrating ably the various styles along the way. Who would you have liked to see cover this song?

Today we've got an interesting little piece from the Canadian boys in D'Urbervilles. I expected a female lead singers when I saw the name of the band, perhaps because of the novel (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for you unlettered folks out there) and something moody and mellow. Instead, I found this slightly-hyper bunch of guys jamming and doing a little yelling, but not in an obnoxious, screamo way. What do you think?

I love songs by talented musicians who complain about getting old while rocking the heck out of what they're playing. In this case, Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater (that'd be the opposite of Muddy Waters, as the apocryphal story goes) and Lonnie Brooks riff off of each other and bemoan the fact that they are Too Old to Get Married and too young to be buried. The track comes from Clearwater's "West Side Strut" album released in 2008, and such an impressive amount of guitar blues and rock is enclosed therein that it's difficult to believe that the man is in his 70s.

You can hear a bit of Muddy Waters here, and a smidgen of Bo Diddley, as well as a liberal dose of Chicago blues. If you want a little trivia, Ronnie Brooks produced the record and wrote Too Old to Get Married (Too Young to Be Buried) for Eddy Clearwater and his father to enjoy. You can very clearly hear just how much fun they're having in this recording.

I came about Three Cool Cats completely backwards: the first version that I heard was Three Cool Chicks from the 5678s. It seemed vaguely familiar, and a little digging led me to the Ray Cooder cover from 2005 and then the original from The Coasters, which was the B side of the Charlie Brown 45 from 1959. Apparently, The Beatles snuck in a cover version a few years after that. In my opinion, theirs is a weaker copy and was something that they should not have attempted, but you can make up your own mind on that score.

Unfortunately, Grooveshark didn’t have the original song and the videos on YouTube left quite a bit to be desired in sound quality. I have included the video for Sha Na Na’s cover of Three Cool Cats, mostly because I swear they recorded it on the Sesame Street sound stage while Big Bird was sleeping but also because it's an interesting version.

As if Gogol Bordello weren't interesting enough, with their multi-cultural sound and punk-infused craziness, they branched off into the "Jewish-Ukrainishe-Freundschaft" or JUF for an album or combined gypsy-electro-punk that wanders all over the musical map. From When I Was a Little Spy, which I really wanted to like considering my love of spy music, to the JUF Dub, a rather uneven but more entertaining song, to Last Wish of the Bride, the most successful song on the record.

The steady beat, the varied instrumentation, and the familiar voice of Eugene Hutz pull together on this one (what is with Gogol Bordello and weddings, anyway?) and it's a fun song. I prefer the more straightforward tracks on Gogol Bordello albums like Super Taranta! and Immigrant Punk, but you can find enough mashed into this album to make for a cross-genre, world music festival. This may be one of those albums that grows on you the more you hear it, but even at first "glance", there are a few tracks that deserve to end up in regular rotation. As an experimental side project, the album stands up well. Let me know what you think.