Similarly, A) Billy Idol’s version of Dancing With Myself is a remake of the Gen. X version, even though Billy sings both versions, and B) Todd Rundgren’s version of “Hello, It’s Me” is a remake of the Nazz version, also sung by Rundgren.
I didn’t realize until pretty recently that Whisky In the Jar wasn’t written by Thin Lizzy. Does it count as a cover if it’s a folk song, though?
One tune that many people don’t realize is a cover – George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set On You,” a remake of an old song performed by a guy named James Ray. George left out the bridge:
“Everywhere I go, you know, bad luck follows me.
Every time I fall in love I melt in misery.”
The one that shocked me: “Can’t Get Enough Of You, Baby” as performed by Smash Mouth. I found this out when my wife started taking go-go classes, and one of the songs they danced to was a song with the same title – by ? and the Mysterians. I looked it up in the iTunes – sho’ 'nuff, same song! Just imagine Smash Mouth’s version, but performed as if it were “96 Tears,” complete with the annoying organ chords. I can’t believe I played it on the radio all the time when it first came out and never knew it was a cover. 
I was curious about this so I googled it.
Available here on Amazon.
Another of Swing Out Sister’s songs, “Am I the Same Girl” is a cover of the 1968 version, which in turn became an instrumental called “Soulful Strut”, covered by Young Holt Unlimited and George Benson (to name two).
Don’t forget Miss Parton singing the song in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas…y ahear?
It’s on iTunes - a sort of barrelhouse country version.
Google returns 5,800,000 hits for “the smiths how soon is now” and 900,000 for “love spit love how soon is now”.
I think that you’ll find it’s generational. I’ve gone out with at least two goths in their mid-20s with several years of gothdom each who I had to introduce to the Smiths and the Psychadelic Furs, but who knew Love Spit Love immediately.
1970s - “Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
1980s - “Paul McCartney was in a band?”
1990s - “Paul McCartney was a musician?”
2000s - “Heather Mills’ ex- was famous?”
I’m 27 and I’d never heard of Love Spit Love until this thread. Having listened to about 30 seconds of their version on YouTube I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard their version of the song either.
Curiously, I hate The Smiths but love How Soon is Now?
I was surprised to learn that:
“A Taste of Honey” wasn’t written by the Beatles, but by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow.
“Summertime” wasn’t written by the Zombies but it was from Porgy and Bess.
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” is a folk song, not written by Lead Belly.
“How Soon Is Now” as the theme of Charmed wasn’t The Smiths. Seriously, it took until around season 3 for me to figure that out! I even knew other Love Spit Love songs, too.
Likewise, I didn’t realize that the version of “People Are Strange” on the The Lost Boys soundtrack was by Echo and the Bunnymen, not The Doors.
I would have guessed Orgy’s Blue Monday is probably much better known than the New Order original nowadays, but Google returns only 100,000 hits for the former and 28 million for the latter. By way of comparison, “michael jackson beat it” returns 31 million.
I never heard of them, either, but I’m a little older, 34. The only “How Soon is Now” cover I’m familiar with is t.A.T.u.'s (the two Russian teenaged faux-lesbian band from the early 2000s).
I went a few years or more thinking I Feel for You was a Chaka Khan original. It’s by Prince. The Prince version is a ballad and thus not suitable for breakdancing.
Umm, how is this possible?
People are Strange was on the Doors 2nd. album released in September 1967 and has writing credit as “the Doors”
E & TBM was formed in 1978.
so unless Echo has a time machine…
Prince also wrote Nothing Compares 2 U (made famous by Sinead O’Connor), Sugar Walls (Sheena Easton) and Manic Monday (The Bangles).
She’s not saying The Doors covered E & TBM. She’s just saying she didn’t realize it wasn’t The Doors’ version she was hearing.
That’s the one. With the add’l knowledge of who sang it, I found it on youtube. Thanks.
I didn’t know:
“Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia (orig. by Ednaswap)
“Kim the Waitress” by Material Issue (orig. by Green Pajamas)
“Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus (orig. Marcy Brothers)
“Hard to Handle” by the Black Crowes (orig. Otis Redding–though I heard this long before I started getting into Otis Redding. In the same vain, I don’t think I heard Redding’s original version of “Respect” until many many years of hearing the Aretha Franklin version.)
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper (orig. Robert Hazard)
Lodi Dodi by Snoop Dogg is a cover of Slick Rick’s La Di Da Di, which I love. Just throwing that one out there because I know some younger rap fans that didn’t know that.
Don’t forget “Spirits in the Night” and “I Came for You”.