Almost forgot: Chuck Berry’s “The Promised Land” is a rock and roll version of “The Wabash Cannonball”.
And a UK version
Wow, that Bonnie Hart/Bon Jovi example is something else. Who knew?
My contribution: the Stones’ 1969 hit “Honky Tonk Women” had three varieties of verses: “Country Honk” (rural version on the Let If Bleed album); the studio single; and the live one (on Get Yer Ya-yas Out) with the verse about charming sailors in Paris (?!).
“House of the Rising Sun” is apparently a centuries-old ballad, and its lyrics have been changed all over the map. The most familiar version, by The Animals in 1964, already has lyrics changed from earlier versions. But the one that really gets me is the one sung by Andy Griffith (!). He so completely changed the lyrics – Good ol’ Andy would never sing about a whorehouse – that it’s unrecognizable.
There’s even one more layer to this song. The chorus of “Der Kommissar” was based on the riff in Rick James’ “Super Freak”, which is one of the most sampled songs ever. For instance, MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” uses the same sample. All those songs of course have different lyrics.
Chinese Rocks has two different versions. Lyrics are mostly the same except when the singer is asking who’s home.
In 1959 Tommy Facenda released 29 versions of “High School USA”, each listing the high schools in a particular region.
This reminded me of the song, “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke),” a 1981 song by Terry Cashman, a nostalgic piece about baseball and its stars (particularly from the postwar era).
Cashman later recorded different versions of the song, with lyrics specific to particular MLB teams. In 1992, he also recorded a satirical version, “Talkin’ Softball,” for an episode of The Simpsons.
There was at least one version of “Hooray for Hollywood” (ETA: on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour) with the celebrity references updated for the 70s. (" …where any person like Laverne or Shirley or Jo Anne Worley is equally understood…")
And the version heard in “A Star Is Hatched” changed the line “you might be Donald Duck” to “you might be Daffy Duck,” for obvious reasons.
There were many versions of the song that became Yankee Doodle.
And the Star Spangled Banner had the music from To Anacreon in Heaven.
Did anyone mention Elton John’s “Candle In the Wind” / “Goodbye English Rose” yet?
Alice Cooper’s ‘Reflected’ later was reworked as the more famous ‘Elected’.
Alice’s original version of “He’s Back (the Man Behind the Mask)” later became “Trick Bag” with entirely different lyrics (though I don’t think the original was released before being included in the box set many years later)
In 1983, David Gilmour asked Pete Townshend to write lyrics to go with a melody he’d composed. He wound up not liking Townshend’s lyrics and asked Roy Harper to write a new set of lyrics instead. Gilmour never did record the song himself, but Townshend and Harper both recorded their versions of it, with Gilmour playing on Pete’s version.
The whole concept of Kidz Bop is clean versions of real songs, sung by kids. They take out the bad words, change the situation to be kid situations, and keep the music.
I haven’t heard a ton of KB music but the songs I’ve heard are pretty grating. Here’s the KB version of a Lizzo song and the real song, see for yourself.
Even worse is “Montero” by Lil Nas X. Here’s KB, here’s the real one. I guess if you know “Montero” in full context it’s more cringey. Otherwise parents can be blissfully unaware.
During a tribute dinner for David Sarnoff, Frank Sinatra sang “The Lady is a Tramp” with the chorus, “The Gentleman’s a Champ.” Probably other lyrics of the song were changed to fit the situation.
I’m crossposting this from the “Rock songs with non-English lyrics” thread because it fits in here just as well.
Thought of another one. A not very well-known part of Monty Python history is the story of them producing two or three episodes in German for the German regional TV broadcaster WDR about 1972 or so. The famous philosopher’s football match is from it, also the lesser known sketch “The Bavarian Restaurant Stück”. And they also turned the “Lumberjack Song” into the “Holzfällerlied”:
Since someone else mentioned The Simpsons, there are a few other cases where a song was used with different lyrics.
The B-52s redid their song “Love Shack” as “Glove Slap”.
And a group that sounds like Weezer (but is not Weezer) changed “Beverly Hills” into “Waverly Hills”.
There are probably more examples that I can’t think of right now.
Darn, I wanted to be the one to mention “Talkin’ Baseball.” Not quite quick enough.
The Viennese folk song “O du lieber Augustin” (which, despite the rather jaunty melody, is about the inevitability of misery and death) has been adapted into “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” and also “The More We Get Together.”
More on Elvis - “It’s Niw or Never”, and an earlier 50s song “There’s No Tomorrow” - both based on “O Sole Mio”.
“Wooden Heart” - based on “Muss i Denn”
“Surrender” - based on “Torna a Sorrento”.
“Stay Away” - based on “Greensleeves”.
Great thread. I was thinking about Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home),” which is the English version of the German original, “Major Tom (Völlig Losgelöst).” The lyrics are essentially the same but if I’m not mistaken in the English version he’s at peace with floating forever in space. In German, it ends with the capsule floating but we never hear from Major Tom again.
R.E.M. have “7 Chinese Brothers” which appeared on their second album Reckoning.
A few years later, “Voice of Harold” was released on Dead Letter Office, their B-sides collection.
Same music, but on VoH Stipe is reading the credits on the back of a gospel album.
I can’t remember if I heard the demo first, or the original, but I tend to hum the words of the demo. I believe the story was that the producer wanted Stipe to emote more, and there is much greater emotional gravity in the demo IMO.