Why are Adele and Bon Iver covering Bonnie Raitt?

Last week Adele became the latest indie act to cover Bonnie Raitt's I Can't Make You Love Me, performing it live at the iTunes Festival in London (7 July).

The American singer released the original in 1991 but since then a whole host of acts have put their spin on the song it from Prince to more recently Bon Iver. Considering the song wasn't exactly a smash hit at the time - it peaked at number 18 in the US charts - Al Horner asks: why are so many acts are covering it now?

The song, described by Carole King as "torn from the depths of feeling, from the bottom of that horrible place where your love in unrequited", was first covered in 1996 by Prince who kept its sorrowful bluster while injecting it with a seductive, saxophone-led swagger. George Michael followed suit a year later with a similarly lustful cover - though the less said about the subsequent Peter Andre and Boyz 2 Men versions, the better.

Not bad for a song, written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, that was inspired by a court report about a man who shot at his girlfriend's car with a gun in a drunken rage. The man told the court: "I learned, your Honour, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't." Q said at the time: "Listening to Bonnie Raitt songs is like going to one of those strange restaurants where there are only three choices on the menu - but what dishes they are. Weeping-into-your-beer slow and powerful."

Now it seems it becoming an indie staple. In the last fortnight, both Adele and Bon Iver have unveiled covers of the piano anthem.

"I thought, man, I need [original keyboard player Bruce] Hornsby in my scene," says Iver of his decision to tackle the Raitt. In fact he likes it so much, he borrowed Hornsby' twinkly keyboard sound Beth/Rest, the closing track on his latest album.

Adele's rendition of the song at the Roundhouse last week was similarly understated.

Digital sales of the original have boomed on the back of these covers, increasing 400 percent over last month's sales, as it seems that two decades of the song filtering from artist to artist has turned it from a cheese-piano pop anthem, via a guilty pleasure, into a heartstring-tugging classic.

The song has come almost full circle - the barrage of acclaimed artists to have covered the song, at first tongue-in-cheek and then more sincerely, have actually made it very credible.

All that remains is for an unlistenable bleeps-and-beats version from a fashionable electro-hipster trio to come around and Bonnie Raitt will have completed a remarkable, if unlikely, journey from pure cheese to pure cool.

And then surely it can't be long for I Can't Make You Love Me to go right round the circle and become cheesy again with a comedy cover. Katy Brand must be waiting in the wings...

1:46 PM | 13/07/2011

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Adele , Al Horner , Bon Iver , Bonnie Raitt

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