Well, cover songs are not garbage. To many, many people, a song represents a time in their life, a memory of a person or event, and hearing the song brings that memory back. That's why oldies radio stations are so popular and that's why the majority of musicians and bands in clubs are "cover bands".

If you are among the rare group of musicians who are able to play mostly your own original material, consider yourself fortunate. You have obviously been at it for a long time in order to be able to get away with playing originals and not getting thrown out of the clubs. You have a loyal following who shows up at the gigs, and you present the original material in a way that even the new folks to your shows get into the music and the lyrics.

In the bands I've been in, we mostly played covers. Some originals sprinkled in but mostly cover tunes. I've even had club owners specifically tell us not to play more than one or two (at the most) original songs in a set because the people don't dance to what they don't know.

It takes time to build that audience who comes to the shows loyally, and want to hear your songs as opposed to covers. Since we couldn't do many originals that actually was the inspiration for us to work up "alternative" versions of cover songs that became our "trademark style" as it turned out. We didn't play the covers in the same tired stale way and it became something that people really enjoyed..... it also became our stage show and our little 3 piece band was commanding the same money that 6 and 7 piece bands were getting as a result of how we did things. Other local bands started to try to copy us. That's when you know you have people's attention. Their attempts were not successful. There was but one band doing what we did.... and it was us.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.