I’m sure I’m not the only one who throughout the years thought a particular song was much older or newer than I had imagined.
So fellow Dopers ever been left scratching your head when learning about the year a song was released, and it was way off to what you had pictured?
Several that come to mind:
“Baby Hold On”- Eddie Money. I felt strange finding out this song was from the late seventies, thought it would have been the eighties for sure.
“Red Red Wine”-UB40’s famous cover version, was #1 in 1988, and I used to hear often during the nineties as a child, even into the early 2000’s. Some years ago I found that the 1988 was NOT it’s original release date, it was actually 1983:dubious::eek:!! The song does not seem THAT old. A Neil Diamond cover at that.
“What I Am” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. Sounds like mid 90’s song, actually released in the very late 1980’s. Same with “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman.
Now this does not happen with current songs or songs released since I was a teen onwards. The examples I have listed above were from before I was born or when I was an infant.
So am I crazy or ever been puzzled by a song’s date of release?
Not “pop” music, but I just realized today that the Patti Lupone/Michael Cerveris production of Sweeney Todd came out 10 years ago! I could have sworn it hasn’t been that long.
The closest I’ve ever been to what the OP describes is when I look back at a song and say, “that came out that long ago!? Damn, I’m gonna be getting old soon.”
It was re-released in 1988. It was performed live that year as part of the celebration of Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday (although he was still in prison). Astro, the singer from UB40, did it as a solo act.
I haunt a FB site about growing up in the 60’s and they keep showing lists of the ‘top 50 most popular songs’ throughout the 60’s. Holy Cripes, I am continually shocked at reading the years those songs came out. And talk about feeling OLD! I read the list for 1964 and I am right back in middle school listening to the Beatles on a transistor radio. ANCIENT!
Recently saw on Sirius’ 90s on 9 that Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time” came out in 1999. I could have swore she came out earlier in the 90s. I would’ve guessed 96. She just seems so “90s” to me, but she barely was.
Cat Stevens recorded “The First Cut Is the Deepest” in 1967, but to my ears it sounds like it must have been recorded in the early '70s. (Many other people, of course, are shocked that it even came out in that century, since Sheryl Crow’s cover is the best known version.)
Likewise, “One Step Beyond”, by Madness, has all the elements I associate with the ska-punk that was huge in southern CA in the '90s when I was a teenager, but it’s actually from 1979.
Well, some of Lucille Bogan’s (NSFW) work surprised me—mostly because one tends to think of some of those words as not being invented until about 30 years later. :eek: (Jesus. My grandfathers were seven years old when that one was recorded…)
Also, “Young Men Dead”, which was inexplicably released not only over 40 years after The Doors’ eponymous album was made, but by a completely different band.
The hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” was written in 1912. Yet years ago, I read two novels set during the 1800’s in which the main character sings it. (Sorry, can’t remember the titles.)
To me, it definitely sounds late classical/early romantic but with hints of ragtime or something like that a century to come. I don’t think I would have made the boogie woogie connection unless it was pointed out.
When first hearing the song “Booty Swing” by Parov Stelar, both the lyrics and the music made me think it was from the 1940s or earlier. Imagine my surprise when I googled it and found it was released in 2010 :eek:
Not the greatest example, since it is a song I hate, but that “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene always sounded to me like the quintessential awful mid-70s dreck. I’d have pegged it as coming from 1975.
Apparently it was a top ten hin in 1983! It sounds so “un-83” to me (I was a teen and actually listened to pop music back then, and it was all heavy synths and power chords.)
Actually, you were close. Charlene recorded her song in 1976, and it was released the following year as a single but did very poorly (only reached #97 on the charts.) Then in 1982, a Tampa DJ discovered the song and started playing it frequently, which eventually led to it becoming a #3 hit.
Trivia note: A 2006 CNN poll ranked “I’ve Never Been To Me” as the 4th worst song of all time, with the top three being “(You’re) Havin’ My Baby”, “Muskrat Love” and “You Light Up My Life”. Heavy competition!
