There are thousands of examples of different songs with the same name, and we’ve done many threads about them, but this is kind of the opposite situation. For instance, the obvious title for the Clash song “Train In Vain” would’ve been “Stand By Me”, but of course that’s also a former famous Ben E. King song. An alternative name would’ve been “Stand By Your Man”, but that had been taken by Tammy Wynette. So they called it “Train In Vain” instead, I guess out of respect for the mentioned artists. Another such case is the one hit wonder song “What’s Up” by the Four Non Blondes, whose natural title would have been “What’s Going On”, but that’s a famous song by Marvin Gaye.
Many people mistakenly think The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” is called “Teenage Wasteland”, but that name was already used for an earlier rendition of the song. Both tracks were originally meant to coexist on the scrapped album “Lifehouse”. Here’s a link to the unused song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbM6o3fT6sg
I remember hearing that Peter Wolf’s “Lights Out” from 1984 was originally going to be called “Dancing in the Dark” but changed it because Springsteen’s song by that name has already come out or was about to come out.
That’s interesting, and I didn’t know that. The story I heard was that the song, which was released and known outside the US as simply “Get It On”, was retitled for the US market because the original title seemed to be too racy for that market.
I read an interview with Neil Finn where he said he should’ve called “Don’t Dream it’s Over” the “Hey Now” song because he kept hearing from record store owners that that’s what people were coming in looking for.
He mentioned this because the most recent Crowded House album had a song that was originally titled “Life’s Imitation” until his kids wisely encouraged him to change it to “Teenage Summer.”
Barry Manilow changed the title of a song named “Brandy” by Scott English and Richard Kerr to “Mandy” when he recorded it, because there was already a popular song here called “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass.
Sheena Easton’s “9 to 5 (Morning Train)” got the “Morning Train” added for its US release to distinguish it from the Dolly Parton song of the same name which had come out a few months earlier.
That’s interesting, and I didn’t know that. The story I heard was that the song, which was released and known outside the US as simply “Get It On”, was retitled for the US market because the original title seemed to be too racy for that market.
post by Stephe96 3 hours ago
Stephe96
So why wasn’t there a similar problem when Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” was released a few years later?
Empire State of Mind by Jay-z and Alicia Keys would most likely have been titled New York State of Mind if Billy Joel (and Nas) hadn’t gotten there first.
You’re absolutely right, but I seem to remember having read that the working title for the song was in fact “Stand By Me”, but the band changed it to avoid confusion with the Ben E. King song. Sorry, no cite, I forgot where I heard it.
ETA: I found a cite on the wiki page for the song:
Seems strange that the Wikipedia article doesn’t mention that the name of the track “Train in Vain” was etched into the dead wax on side 4 of the album by the mastering engineer - https://imgur.com/clash-london-calling-pdrPapi
There is an amusing account here trying to find out the name to play it on air.
