# Gender, and remakes of songs. Anyone else find this comical? Examples? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479 "2006-02-01T06:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/1 "2006-02-01T06:23:55Z")
I am right about to sign off, but before I do, I feel the need to post something besides pit material, or GD. Thus, I would like to ask people what their thought are when they hear a song being preformed by a singer of the opposite gender/preference of the original singer. What do you prefer? A female lead singing it in a different style? Almost exactly the same? Also, what if it was a romantic song. Do you feel offended if they change the pronouns to reflect what society expects/what they prefer. Do you find it comical when a pop singer talks about pursuing another guy, if the pronouns are not changed? Ever hear any examples when the singer kept the original pronouns, on purpose? Personally, I recently listened to Joan Jett singing the classic Gary Glitter song, “Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah)” Now, personally the original struck me as gayer then a Tom of Finland sketch, but having a women preform the song added a whole new level, but it didn’t sound quite as good. Now, I am listening to [Punk Goes 80’s](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009G3BAQ/ref=pd_lpo_k2a_1_img/002-8062938-3884068?%5Fencoding=UTF8). Much to my bemusement, “Emery” , a Christian emocore band, is playing a pretty rocking cover of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero”. The song includes the lyrics “He’s gotta be strong And he’s gotta be fast And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight” and “It’s gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet” I can not stop chuckling. Now, anyone who cares to comment, give examples of anything relating to gender and remakes, or etc.? ---
**Author:** ![explore\_like\_dora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eada6e/32.png) [@explore\_like\_dora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/explore_like_dora)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/2 "2006-02-01T14:24:23Z")
I hate it when they change the pronouns. I figure if you’re covering a song sung by someone of the opposite gender, you do it straight, so to speak. Change the pronouns and you get that horrible “I Saw Him Standing There.” Keep them as is, and you get things like the White Stripes magnificent re-casting of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/3 "2006-02-01T14:32:38Z")
I was at someone’s house many years ago, and on their piano I saw the sheet music for “I’ve been to Paradise (But I’ve never been to Me)”, the romance novel -like inexplicable hit for Charlene from about 25 years ago. The song is pretty insufferable by itself. As I say, it pretty clearly seems to me to be told from the point of view of a heroine ffrom a romance novel to a reader of same, although no reviewer or critic writing about it seems to have caught onto that interpretatioon. So I was flabbergasted to find, on the back page of the music, alternate lyrics for a male singer. Hard to believe such a thing could exist, given the context (which the male lyrics are consistent with), but there it is. I never heard anyone sing this monstrosity, and I hope I never do. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/4 "2006-02-01T14:38:41Z")
You two have literally made me laught out loud. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/5 "2006-02-01T14:40:01Z")
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do a great cover of “Natural Woman” that still makes me giggle every time. Great song, both the original and the cover, but the way the male lead sings it like he obviously doesn’t give a damn that he doesn’t happen to _be_ a woman is fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/6 "2006-02-01T14:50:51Z")
Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian superstar, did an all-English album a couple of years ago that I adore – he covers _So in Love, Cry Me a River, It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)_, and _Come As You Are_, etc. etc. etc. One of the best songs is _The Man I Love_, which he sings, er, “straight,” with no changes in the lyrics at all. (“Someday he’ll come along, the man I love, and he’ll be big and strong, the man I love…” etc.) It’s fabulous. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/7 "2006-02-01T14:51:32Z")
Tracy Grammer covers Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” straight. Then again, she also does “Crocodile Man,” but it’s not a cover as it was written by Dave Carter (don’t know if the original intention was for him to do the vocals, or her.) But then “Crocodile Man” was covered by Chris Smithers (male). And I hear Mary Chapin Carpenter was going to cover it too. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/8 "2006-02-01T14:59:37Z")
Blondie’s cover of “I’m Gonna Love You Too” kept the pronouns. I usually don’t notice until I think about it. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/9 "2006-02-01T15:18:32Z")
On the [album](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000001EC5/sr=1-1/qid=1138806951/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1397392-2150414?%5Fencoding=UTF8) of Gershwin tunes sung by current pop folks, Elton John sang a modified Someone to Watch Over Me: “I’d like to add her initials to my mongram…” Not only does that make no sense in the traditional monogramming process, but since he’s into guys he could have just left it as the original. ---
**Author:** ![Charger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/10 "2006-02-01T15:30:58Z")
> [@Draelin](#): > > Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do a great cover of “Natural Woman” that still makes me giggle every time. Great song, both the original and the cover, but the way the male lead sings it like he obviously doesn’t give a damn that he doesn’t happen to _be_ a woman is fantastic. I’ve often thought that song would be more appropriate for a male, simply because every woman needs no outside influence to feel like one. Nor would they know what it feels like _not_ to be one. It’s the perfect song for a post-op transexual. The same holds true for Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman.” That’s great Shania, but how do you know what it feels like not to be? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/11 "2006-02-01T15:51:52Z")
> [@Fern Forest](#): > > Blondie’s cover of “I’m Gonna Love You Too” kept the pronouns. > > I usually don’t notice until I think about it. And Blondie also did “Denis”, which was a cover of Randy and the Rainbows’s “Denise”. So, they made the original female name male in a weirdly French sort of way. Truly inspired. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/12 "2006-02-01T16:11:17Z")
Dear God, apparently there _have_ been male versions of “I’ve Never Been to Me” that have been _recorded_. I now know what the Muzak system in Hell plays. Look at this site, and others like it: [http://www.charlenesmusic.com/never.html](http://www.charlenesmusic.com/never.html) WARNING: If you open this it’ll play Charlene’s female version of the song. You have been warned. ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/13 "2006-02-01T16:31:02Z")
Never been done that I’ve heard, but I have a vision of someone re-making “You May Be Right” by Billy Joel - but as a duet. In my mind the first verse is done by a male, singing directly to a female, and then in the second verse he sings most, but she sings some of it (“I told you dirty jokes to make you smile”, and “I said take me as I am” in particular). Susan ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/14 "2006-02-01T16:36:24Z")
This may be pretty obscure, but I’d love to hear a good guy singer doing a cover of “Maybe he’ll notice her now” with switching the gender pronouns, “Maybe she’ll notice him now.” (Though it isn’t obvious from the title, the singer’s gender should match, since he/she is supposed IMO to be converting a me/you situation into third person to avoid the immediateness, until the end, when she switches back to “I’m coming home, maybe you’ll notice me now.”) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/15 "2006-02-01T16:41:28Z")
Aretha Franklin covered Otis Redding’s “Respect” and by changing the character from a man to a woman created a classic song that had far more power than the original. ---
**Author:** ![rpinrd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@rpinrd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rpinrd)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/16 "2006-02-01T16:42:18Z")
This may not quite be “off topic” but is “adajacent topic” at best. I’m a straight guy, and I think one of the reasons I’ve always been into Melissa Ethridge’s music is that I can sing along secure in the knowledge that both Melissa and I are singing to women, if not necessarily the same set of women. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/17 "2006-02-01T16:57:09Z")
> [@Draelin](#): > > Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do a great cover of “Natural Woman” that still makes me giggle every time. Great song, both the original and the cover, but the way the male lead sings it like he obviously doesn’t give a damn that he doesn’t happen to _be_ a woman is fantastic. Or their version of _Stand By Your Man_? I’ve got a Motley Crue tribute album and an all female band does a cover of _Girls, Girls, Girls_ that’s just awesome. They even do some ‘vroom, vroom’ noises at the beginning to imitate the motorcycles. ---
**Author:** ![nvad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@nvad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nvad)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/18 "2006-02-01T17:16:50Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Or their version of _Stand By Your Man_? I popped in to mention Lyle Lovett’s (and the Blues Brothers’, for that matter) version of _Stand By Your Man_, but the more I think about it, the more I question whether it satisfies the criteria in the OP since it’s not necessarily a first-hand account. I always appreciated the fact that Bob Dylan didn’t change the narrator’s gender in “House of the Rising Sun.” ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/19 "2006-02-01T17:37:14Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Aretha Franklin covered Otis Redding’s “Respect” and by changing the character from a man to a woman created a classic song that had far more power than the original. Boy, Xap. When you hit you HIT. That’s what I was thinking of. It’s a good song in the first place but Aretha brought it to a completely different level but changing the gender. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479/20 "2006-02-01T17:41:35Z")
> [@Fern Forest](#): > > Blondie’s cover of “I’m Gonna Love You Too” kept the pronouns. …a decade after discovering that dropping the ‘e’ in Denise cofused everyone, except the French. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-and-remakes-of-songs-anyone-else-find-this-comical-examples/342479.md?page=2)