“Horse with No Name” by Neil Young.
And “Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of…HEY LADY” by Jerry Lewis was my first thought when I saw this thread’s title.
Hmm, I thought that was by James Taylor until just now.
That’s awesome. 
Damn’ right it is!
I had a long conversation with my 16 year old daughter the other day that “Kalifornication*” was not done by Nirvana, as she previously believed. And yes, I blame the P2P folks.
*Red Hot Chili Peppers
Due to a mislabelled file, I still have trouble remembering that “Detachable Penis” is not by Primus.
My wife and I were in the car listening to I’m A Believer (the original, not the new one by Smashmouth). She thought it was the Beatles, and I thought Monkeys. Well, I knew it was The Monkeys, and said so.
The song ended, and the announcer was like, “Ah, you got to love the Beatles.” Great…
so did I , but I wasnt sure, since at the time the station i heard it on wasnt an AC/DC format.
I have, however mistaken Aerosmiths version of “Back in the Saddle Again” for AC/DC.
The Buck Cherry & AC/DC confusion is understandable. Buck Cherry has said that AC/DC is their greatest influence, and they listen to the entire Back In Black album before every show.
Buck Cherry, noisy and dumb, but I still like the song “Lit Up”.
There was a thread about wrong artist mix-ups a few months ago where I named several I had wrong. And even found out I had some of my corrections wrong.
For years I thought Sister Golden Hair Surprise was by Steely Dan. I was so relieved when I found out it was by America, because I had real trouble acknowledging to myself that there could ever possibly be a Steely Dan song I like.
Not that I’m a big America fan, but at least they’re not Steely Dan. Cripes.
For years I walked around in ignorance thinking Young Girl (as in… Get out of my mind) was done by Jonny Mathis.
I thought Chicago’s “Hard to say I’m sorry” was by the Bee Gees.
The strange irony here, is that the song is indeed by Hot Chocolate, but it’s called You Sexy Thing. (And ever since The Full Monty, I can’t stand the song, because it makes me think of unattractive men stripping.)
While we’re on David Bowie, when the single A Girl Like You (Edwin Collins) came out, many, many people thought it was by Bowie. I remember hearing this discussed on the radio several times.
Speaking of mislabelled files on file-sharing networks…
Spoz once blogged that he’d forgotten to check just once that an Eminem WinMX video was indeed what he wanted. It wasn’t… it was a Christina Aguilera video listed as Eminem. (and apparently at least 12 users had it listed as that) 
:eek:
Later, he told me it spent a grand total of 5 seconds on his system before he deleted it. Then again, he’d taught his father to download stuff off of WinMX… and his father got fooled by the same trick. As he described it to me in an email on Nov. 25 (date easy to remember since it’s my beloved brother’s birthday :D):
(bolded bit in square brackets mine)
Definitely some very bizarre stuff happening there!
F_X
My wife thought “Wheel in the Sky” by Journey was Roberta Flack…
Nope. That was America’s first hit.
To give credit where it’s due, the “Goodness Gracious Great Balls of…HEY LADY!” line is from a Pit thread that made Threadspotting.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=62082&highlight=Jerry+Lewis
:eek:
LOL!
Erm … well, I thought <i>Dancin’ in the Moonlight</i> was a Van Morrison song, too. I’m sure I have a lot of other misperceptions about who sings what song but I can’t think of any others right now.
Anyway, yeah the file-sharing mislabels are annoying. But it’s also hard to find the correct info online. For example, I was trying to find the original performer of Everlasting Love, so I did a lyrics search and it was credited to both U2 and Gloria Estefan, who both covered the song but neither were the original performers and neither wrote the song. I found it interesting that all these lyric sites have a disclaimer about the songs being the property of the songwriter yada, yada, yada but none actually credit the writer. They usually list it as if the performer wrote it, which I am sure then leads to more people being confused.
I know a number of people who think that “Sister Golden Hair” is performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. (It’s not - it’s America.)
Despite being a huge fan of Queen, the first time I heard Another One Bites the Dust I thought it was Aerosmith.
“Crumblin’ Down” sure sounded like the Stones to me. Anything by Eddie and the Cruisers sounds like Bruce to me.
I used to confuse two songs thinking Pink Floyd was the artist: “Lunatic Fringe” by Red Rider and that Also Nova tune that starts with a helicopter at the beginning.
I always used to think the ELO tune “Don’t Bring Me Down” was by the Beegees.
“Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” by the Hollies has been thought to be CCR by many, including me.
I used to confuse two songs with Pearl Jam…both one hit wonders. “Just Let Me Be” by the Arch Angels and “The Church of Logic, Sin, and Love” by The Men.
And, my all time biggest gaff…I always thought “The Way That You Use It”, the them from The Color of Money was by Joe Cocker. After all, I had everything in the Clapton library…and that song wasn’t in it.
For years, I thought Rick Springfield’s “Don’t Talk to Stranger” was by the Doobie Brothers.
And, finally…I always used to think that anything by Thin Lizzy (“The Boys Are Back”, “Jailbreak”) was by the Bachman-Turner Overdrive.