Jim Morrison really liked The Beatles’ “Come Together”
NPR music critic Bob Boilen wrote a book a few years ago called “Your Song Changed My Life”, where he interviewed musicians about what songs from other musicians inspired them. I picked it up at our local library a while back. Lots of great stories… worth checking out if you’re interested in this kind of thing.
There must be plenty of these, but the only one that immediately springs to my mind is that Paul McCartney admired the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds and especially “God Only Knows.”
If you go back a ways, and interpret “song” relatively loosely, Johannes Brahms was apparently an admirer of Johann Strauss’s “The Blue Danube.”
A long time ago I saw David Bromberg perform in concert. Opening act was a new guy, Leon Redbone.
Anyway, Bromberg had covered and recorded Mr Bojangles. Someone in the audience shouted “Mr Bojangles!” and Bromberg began strumming the tune and talking about the song’s history. His band was offstage, taking a break.
After talking about the song and how much he liked it, he decided not to do it. He told the crowd that we needed to see Jerry Jeff Walker do the song, as it was his and he did it best.
Bob Dylan covered Tom Paxton’s “Annie’s Going To Sing Her Song,” and it was released on his Self-Portrait album. No higher praise than that.
Brian Wilson was obsessed with The Ronettes’ “Be my Baby”. Not so much the song itself, but the recording as produced by Phil Spector.
The song Supernaut by Black Sabbath was a favorite of Frank Zappa and John Bonham.
Jimmy Page on Link Wray’s “Rumble”:
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett are mutual fans, and have performed and recorded together.
Huh, cool.
Maybe not so much admired, but inspired/motivated/dared…
After Paul McCartney heard Pete Townshend in a radio interview bragging about the insane noisiness of a recent single (“I Can See For Miles”), PM thought, well, toss it - I’ll show him what noise is, and got inspired enough to pen “Helter Skelter”.
Apparently session drumming great Jim Keltner “still cries” whenever hearing The Band’s “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down”.
Quite understandable - an awesome, moving number.
Lennon regarded “Got to Get You Into My Life” as his favourite Paul number and Paul thought “If I Fell” was his favourite John number.
David Yow was a huge Slint fan.
John Lennon said he loved ELO’s “Showdown”
Zappa was also a great fan of Queen’s “Killer Queen”. He played it in a radio show he hosted.
ETA: another one I remember: Bruce Springsteen talked a lot about the impact and influence “Like A Rolling Stone” had on him.
Elvis Costello’s George jones covers were one of the few covers jones himself liked to the point they played them together occasionally and jones’s (and others) support in the 70s and early 80s is why an Irish new wave artist sings at the grand ol opry occasionally…
Adam Duritz is a huge fan of Ben Folds, including mentioning him in the song “Monkey.”
Ben Folds is a fan of Elliot Smith, and eulogized him in the song “Late”
Lots of musos are Joy Division fans, and have done covers - The Cure, Bauhaus, Radiohead, NIN, frigging Moby
but that’s not who I came to mention
I knew John Frusciante was a Joy Division fan because he likes doing the odd brilliant cover. I did not know he (along with some RHCPs) put on an entire concert of just Joy Division covers.
Pete Townshend was a great admirer of ABBA. He referred to SOS as a perfect pop song and studied it obsessively.
Ive seen an interview with Dave Grohl who said that without The Pixies, there would not have been Nirvana.
Frank Sinatra once called George Harrison’s Something the perfect love song
I remember Kurt Cobain always mentioning the Melvins and the Meat Puppets as being a big influence on the band as well.
A whole host of artists loved Warren Zevon’s music. Among the artists that have covered his songs, co-written songs with him, or played on his albums because they wanted to:
Bob Dylan
Bruce Springsteen
Jackson Browne
Neil Young
Bonnie Raitt
Ry Cooder
David Lindley
All the Eagles
Linda Ronstadt, who had hits with ‘Carmelita’ and ‘Hasten Down the Wind’
And many others.