Covers Revue – Urge Overkill covers “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” :: Originally by Neil Diamond

I know you’ve heard of Neil Diamond. But he isn’t just an idol in the eyes of Jason Biggs, Steve Zahn and Jack Black in the movie “Saving Silverman.” This crooner has been making the hearts of older women (and Turrtle!) melt since the late 1950’s.

In “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” The Jewish Elvis starts off slow then builds up speed, just like any great Casanova should! The song has a bit of a Western feel to it, with the slow strumming of a wah-wah’d guitar and the faster strumming of an acoustic. You can hear the pain in Diamond’s voice as he pleads his case:

“I love so much, can’t count all the ways/I’d die for you, girl and all they can say is/He’s not your kind/They never get tired of putting me down/And I never know when I come around/What I’m gonna find/Don’t let them make up your mind/Don’t you know, girl, you’ll be a woman soon/Please, come take my hand/Girl, you’ll be a woman soon/Soon, you’ll need a man”

Complete with strings to accompany his distinct voice and western guitars, the original “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” is a sure-fire way to melt your mother’s heart the same way it did when she was a little girl!

Thanks to another great movie in “Pulp Fiction,” Urge Overkill’s cover of the Diamond classic garnered its own bit of success. But in all honesty, this 90’s band didn’t impress me with their cover of “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon.” The music and arrangement is pretty much exactly the same, except for more use of the piano as opposed to the strings. Lead singer Nathan “Nash Kato” Kaatrud’s voice doesn’t sound exactly the same as Diamond’s but you can tell he’s trying. This cover is another example of a band covering a song exactly and not really implementing much of their own flavor.

The only thing that makes this song a good cover is the fact that it is an exact copy of a great song!