Ketty Lester Vs Elvis Presley Vs Alison Moyet

Well loved songs will find that they are covered time after time after time by artistes down through the ages. I gather that the most copied song of all-time could well be Yesterday by the Beatles.

One song that I've always adored is Love Letters which was originally written in 1945. As with any song, the connection will be made by the listener to a particular artiste who has made the song his or her own. But Love Letters is one of the few with which I can't claim that that is the case. This list states that the song has been covered on at least 27 different occasions.

For me, there are a number of stand-out versions which I can't honestly seperate from each other.

Ketty Lester
This version of the popular song was performed by Ketty in 1962 but found a new lease of life when it was used on the soundtrack of David Lynch's iconic 1986 film Blue Velvet.



Elvis Presley
I adore the male take on this song and there's no better exponent of it than the King himself in 1966. It's certainly the one version that I heard more than any other.



Alison Moyet
But it was on hearing this 1987 version by the under-rated Moyet on radio recently that made me decide to blog on this never out-of-fashion song.



Personally, I could give reasons for preferring any of the above 3 versions but that really isn't the point of this post. The point is to demonstrate that a pure sound will echo down through the ages. Artistes come and artistes go but some songs are so iconic and yet so simple in their structure that they will be covered by contemporary singers the world over.

This is one of those soulful sounds that will never be lost because of the voices through the years that have given it the air from which it has breathed.