# Artists/Bands who covered it each other
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [November 11, 2022, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766 "2022-11-11T20:44:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2022, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/41 "2022-11-15T21:40:39Z")
This one had to be out there - just a question of tracking it down. Of course Bowie covered Reed - here’s a BBC session from 1972 - I chose this one because I remembered (no, really) that Bowie namechecks Reed in it.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdZhgmh2OI)
Reed covers Bowie? Harder to find, but worth the effort, particularly because of the song. I think it’s generally accepted that Lou is the Queen Bitch in question. And it’s a duet - how cool!
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxp1hC8vts)
And along the way a bonus Here’s another unexpected pairing, thrown up while researching the above - Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel (!)
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bBKM2NljZg)
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjvDodTSa3w)
j
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/42 "2022-11-15T21:48:20Z")
which is strange since supposedly Mitchell and Dylan cant be 10 feet in each other for very long
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/43 "2022-11-16T13:52:57Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> I’m on a roll here: Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello
The story that I recall is that Elvis wrote “Girls Talk” for Nick Lowe, and Nick Lowe wrote “What’s So Funny …” for Elvis. I don’t know if either did a studio version of their own song, but I think that they often did them in concert.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/44 "2022-11-16T14:00:43Z")
> [@mcgato](#):
>
> The story that I recall is that Elvis wrote “Girls Talk” for Nick Lowe, and Nick Lowe wrote “What’s So Funny …” for Elvis. I don’t know if either did a studio version of their own song, but I think that they often did them in concert.
I don’t know about “Girls Talk”, but Lowe definitely didn’t write “What’s So Funny…” for Costello, but already in 1974 for the band Brinsley Schwarz he was in, at a time when Costello was still virtually unknown, and I doubt that they even had met yet (though it’s possible).
So, yes, Nick Lowe did a studio version with Brinsley Schwarz, the original version:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J1CfXFlI4c)
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/45 "2022-11-16T14:49:24Z")
Looks like I got my story all wrong. Dave Edmunds did “Girls Talk.” Memory is a bit fuzzy these days.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/46 "2022-11-16T14:54:39Z")
Ehhhh - Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds…easy mistake to make…
Actually, as I was typing that (hopefully amusing) aside, I just realized it’s a mistake I made myself _on these boards_ when I referred to the wrong one as Johnny Cash’s son-in-law. (And I’m not going to risk guessing who’s the right one just now.)
j
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/47 "2022-11-16T14:58:10Z")
Totally off-topic, but I remember a “news” article in National Lampoon back in the late 70s/early 80s talking about a fistfight between David Bowie and Lou Reed outside some New York nightclub. “Witnesses compared it to two old ladies trying to put out a fire on each other’s tummies.” 😅
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/48 "2022-11-16T15:10:40Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> …I doubt that they [Costello and Lowe] even had met yet [in 1974] (though it’s possible)…
Now that made me curious. If you do a bit of googling, the repeated claim is that they first met near the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1972 - though I haven’t yet found a source I would regard as authoritative. Here’s an example:
> Costello first met Nick Lowe in a pub opposite The Cavern in Liverpool in 1972 at a time when the then “D.P. MacManus” and his partner Allan Mayes — as the duo “Rusty” — **were performing many of the songs Lowe had written for the band Brinsley Schwarz**.
[Source](https://parklifedc.com/2022/07/27/preview-elvis-costello-the-imposters-w-nick-lowe-los-straitjackets-wolf-trap-8-18-22/#:~:text=Costello%20first%20met%20Nick%20Lowe,for%20the%20band%20Brinsley%20Schwarz.). My Bold. And now I’m really curious. (Sorry about the hijack, BTW).
j
ETA - [more info](https://www.flickofthefinger.co.uk/news/2022/elvis-costello-and-allan-mayes-reunite-for-new-album/)
> _Our secret weapon was certainly a stack of Nick Lowe’s songs written for Brinsley Schwarz, which were not so very well‐known then. I think some casual listeners might have actually imagined we’d written them and I can’t say we always corrected this misapprehension but I suppose we’d acted as unpaid pitchmen for Nick by the time we met him, when the Brinsleys came to play “The Cavern”._
ETA2 - I’d regard [this](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t32IDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT84&lpg=PT84&dq=rusty+cavern+club+MacManus&source=bl&ots=xgdbANk2ju&sig=ACfU3U0bwWd0zb8ypvQ_c4OnI1G3dXO5RA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFn47C_rL7AhWZi1wKHT0dDioQ6AF6BAg7EAM#v=onepage&q=rusty%20cavern%20club%20MacManus&f=false) as more authoritative - see bottom of the first page.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/49 "2022-11-16T15:37:29Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> [Source](https://parklifedc.com/2022/07/27/preview-elvis-costello-the-imposters-w-nick-lowe-los-straitjackets-wolf-trap-8-18-22/#:~:text=Costello%20first%20met%20Nick%20Lowe,for%20the%20band%20Brinsley%20Schwarz.). My Bold. And now I’m really curious. (Sorry about the hijack, BTW).
Never mind the hijack, I love those little sidetracks in musical threads and all the trivia they uncover, and thanks for the research. I wonder if this first meeting was mentioned in the EC biography “Complicated Shadows”. It’s been some years since I’ve read it and couldn’t remember that factoid.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/50 "2022-11-16T15:49:45Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> I just realized it’s a mistake I made myself _on these boards_ when I referred to the wrong one as Johnny Cash’s son-in-law. (And I’m not going to risk guessing who’s the right one just now.)
Lowe; actual film footage of his wedding to Carlene Carter (Johnny’s stepdaughter) was used in Nick’s video for his song “Cruel to Be Kind” (and Edmunds appears in the video, as well, as the limo driver):
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0l3QWUXVho)
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### Author:  [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/51 "2022-11-16T15:55:59Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> I wonder if this first meeting was mentioned in the EC biography “Complicated Shadows”.
Yep! (That’s a great book!) _Complicated Shadows_ says the two met in 1972. It quotes Lowe:
“We were playing at the Cavern, and we were in The Grapes across the road, sitting there having a cocktail before getting ourselves set. He came in, and somebody said, ‘Look, there’s that weird-looking geezer who’s been at a few of our shows.’ And I thought, ‘Well, it’s about time I bought him a pint and I introduced myself,’ because he never used to come back stage or anything.”
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/52 "2022-11-16T16:06:20Z")
Thanks, @Chad_Sudan. I could’ve looked it up myself, but my books are not stored very orderly and it would’ve taken some time to find my copy.
ETA: and I concur, great book, one of the best bios of a musician/band I’ve read.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/53 "2022-11-16T16:15:59Z")
The Beatles covered a few Little Richard songs, probably _Long Tall Sally_ being the most famous, in 1964.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-iA9-D_Mbw)
Little Richard covered _I Saw Her Standing There_ in 1970
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqMwjTQBCFk)
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/54 "2022-11-16T16:23:57Z")
I promise I’ll stop this hijack now, but… a speculative YouTube punt, and here’s a 1972 Costello (Rusty) demo:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxK2Z5NJZjc)
So far as I can tell the first three songs are written by Costello and the last by Mayes. Also, I’m too out of touch to know that this existed: [The Resurrection Of Rust](http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/The_Resurrection_Of_Rust). Costello and Mayes ride again (2022).
j
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-bands-who-covered-it-each-other/974766/55 "2022-11-16T16:30:06Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> Also, I’m too out of touch to know that this existed: [The Resurrection Of Rust](http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/The_Resurrection_Of_Rust). Costello and Mayes ride again (2022).
I’ve known about that recording. It’s a fun little mini-album.
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