# Songs you didn't know were remakes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 25, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244 "2014-05-25T21:20:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/41 "2014-05-26T13:19:11Z")
[Try a Little Tenderness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnPMoAb4y8U) goes back quite a bit [further](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJMFurJxxF8) than I thought. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/42 "2014-05-26T16:04:35Z")
> [@zombywoof](#): > > An ex-girlfriend’s brother thought “Big Yellow Taxi” was a Counting Crowes original. Amy Grant recorded that song too. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/43 "2014-05-26T16:49:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No. No, no, no, no, no. NO. > > Nothing to do with Spector. They were Motown all the way. “Heatwave” is one of the greatest make-the-dead-rise-up-and-dance songs of the century. > > And Spector produced the Crystals and the Ronettes, who I’ll put up against any Motown group head to head. > > But I goofed, too. It was Gladys Knight and the Pips who had the hit version of “I Head It Through the Grapevine” before Marvin Gaye. I was wondering, after reading your first post, if those two would be commented on. Martha Reeves rocked. And Gladys was the one who gave Grapevine a shot, but Marvin owns it. I didn’t know **Elvis** covered **Hound Dog** , that is was originally for \*\*Big Mama Thornton \*\*- and that he bowdlerized the lyrics… ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/44 "2014-05-26T16:50:37Z")
A lot of the early R&R groups of the 50s/60s covered old hits. Spanky and Our Gang covered “Stardust” on one of their albums. “Do You Wanna Dance?”, covered by both The Beach Boys and The Mamas and The Papas was originally done in 1958 by Bobby Freeman. A lot of the songs I first heard in the 50s/60s and thought were original to that era turned out to be revamped versions of R&B songs or 40s hits. The pop duo Chad & Jeremy had a hit with “Willow Weep For Me”, which was written in 1932! ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/45 "2014-05-26T16:52:23Z")
[Cherry Oh Baby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Donaldson) is commonly said to have been written by Mick Jagger, not UB40. In fact it was Eric Donaldson who wrote the song, which was first covered by the Stones, then much later by UB40. As I was checking about this I found out that **The Lion Sleeps Tonight** was a little…older than I thought. Any guesses? How about… 1939! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/46 "2014-05-26T19:25:55Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > [Cherry Oh Baby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Donaldson) is commonly said to have been written by Mick Jagger, not UB40. In fact it was Eric Donaldson who wrote the song, which was first covered by the Stones, then much later by UB40. > > As I was checking about this I found out that **The Lion Sleeps Tonight** was a little…older than I thought. Any guesses? How about… 1939! Yeah, I’ve read up on the history of the song (I still want to know what that repeated “weemoway” thing means – everybody glosses over it, as if you’re expected to know). _Rolling Stone_ did an entire article on the history of the song, and how the original African creators never saw any royalties from it. My contribution: Having heard Herman’s Hermits singing it in the 1960s. I didn’t realize that **I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am** was an OLD music hall ballad from 1910 (!), and that the Hermits were really only singing the chorus. I was also surprisded to learn that, even in the old days, they sang that chorus _fast_. My original thought, upon learning its age, was that the Hermits had probably up-tempoed it. But it’s possible they may actually have slowed it down from the way some performers handled it. > **[I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Henery_the_Eighth,_I_Am)** > > "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" (also "I'm Henery the VIII, I Am" or "I'm Henry VIII, I Am"; spelled "Henery" but pronounced "'Enery" in the Cockney style normally used to sing it) is a 1910 British music hall song by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston. It was a signature song of the music hall star Harry Champion. > Joe Brown included the song on his first album A Picture of You in 1962. In 1965, it became the fastest-selling song in history to that point when it was revived by Herman's Hermits, becomin... ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/47 "2014-05-26T20:39:15Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > [Cherry Oh Baby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Donaldson) is commonly said to have been written by Mick Jagger, not UB40. In fact it was Eric Donaldson who wrote the song, which was first covered by the Stones, then much later by UB40. > > As I was checking about this I found out that **The Lion Sleeps Tonight** was a little…older than I thought. Any guesses? How about… 1939! I remember Wimoweh from the 50s, by The Seekers (with Pete Seeger). When it came out as a mashup by The Tokens, nobody would believe me that I had heard it in a much earlier version. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/48 "2014-05-26T20:53:01Z")
Black Oak Arkansas built a whole career on the song “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” with the lead singer calling himself “Jim Dandy.” First sung by LaVern Baker in 1956, though. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/49 "2014-05-26T22:40:20Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Yeah, I’ve read up on the history of the song (I still want to know what that repeated “weemoway” thing means – everybody glosses over it, as if you’re expected to know). “Wimoweh” doesn’t mean anything–it was the Weavers’ phonetic approximation of the Zulu chant in the original song. According to Wiki, the word they were trying to say was _uyimbube_, which means “you are a lion.” ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/50 "2014-05-26T22:44:53Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > [Cherry Oh Baby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Donaldson) is commonly said to have been written by Mick Jagger, not UB40. In fact it was Eric Donaldson who wrote the song, which was first covered by the Stones, then much later by UB40. > > As I was checking about this I found out that **The Lion Sleeps Tonight** was a little…older than I thought. Any guesses? How about… 1939! Did UB40 have any American hits that weren’t remakes? ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/51 "2014-05-27T00:49:44Z")
Here’s what I posted the last two times this topic arose: > [@Where the well known version of a song is a cover](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-the-well-known-version-of-a-song-is-a-cover/651895/9): > > I listen to a weekly radio show called “Crap from the Past,” hosted by Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber at a community-run station in Minneapolis. He bills it as a graduate-level course in pop music, because he plays all sorts of obscurities. He devoted a couple episodes to this very topic. Here are those episodes (complete with playlists): > [Crap From The Past - January 30, 2004: Gosh! I didn't know that was a remake! : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](http://www.archive.org/details/cftp-2004-01-30) > [http://www.archive.org/details/cftp-2005-01-28](http://www.archive.org/details/cftp-2005-01-28) ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/52 "2014-05-27T00:57:15Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > Speaking of risque records, Chuck Berry’s big 1972 hit “My Ding-A-Ling” is actually [a cover of this song from 1952(!)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn3nASV-HIs). Yeah, I have an album called [Risque Rhythm, Nasty 50’s R&B.](http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various_artists_f2/risque_rhythm__nasty_50s_randb/) These kids today, with their twerking and crap, thinking they’re so edgy. Dinah Washington’s [Big Long Slidin’ Thing](http://youtu.be/mNsgS6KBdG0) (1954) is my favorite. (It’s about a trombone player.) ETA: Just listened to it again and I’m compellled to to note that this lady has some serious pipes. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/53 "2014-05-27T03:47:12Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > Er, Natalie Imbru… Imbro… Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” was actually a cover of an original by a band called Ednaswap, which came out a couple of years earlier and why the hell did they pick the name _Ednaswap_? According to Wikipedia Imbruglia’s version wasn’t even the first cover of the original, there was an almost identical rendition by Trine Rein in between: > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Z2AiQqsD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Z2AiQqsD8) Just wanted to say that the original is _soooooo by far the best_ version of this song. I had it on a tape I made off DMX (and had no idea who did it) and when I heard the “cover” version, I nearly puked and poked my eardrums out with an icepick. The covers are rich in Suck. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/54 "2014-05-27T04:08:16Z")
Dr Hook had a big hit with She’s Only 16. I found out years later Sam Cooke had done it first. Same deal with Ring Star’s You’re 16 (You’re Beautiful & you’re mine), one of the few solos he did that I like. It a cover too. Johnny Burnette did it first. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/55 "2014-05-27T08:23:28Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The first example that comes to mind for me is “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” which was a big hit in the early 1950s, and a lesser hit with a clever video ca. 1990 by They Might Be Giants. My mother was born in 1913, and she remembered singing this in grade school, some time in the early 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/56 "2014-05-27T09:14:56Z")
From the “male/female top 40 versions” thread: “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” Brenda Holloway (1967)/Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969) (I did not know that!) Why is it that, so often, if a group or performer is known primarily for one song, that song turns out to be a cover? (Among many examples are the previously mentioned “Don’t You Forget About Me,” and even, for many people, Janis Joplin/BBatHC’s “Piece of My Heart”). Suggests to me that great pop songwriting is a rarer gift than “great” (?) pop song performing. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/57 "2014-05-27T13:37:23Z")
I have a friend to despises Bob Dylan. He once remarked how much he loves the Jimi Hendrix song “All Along the Watchtower.” When I told him who wrote that song, he refused to believe me. I had to go on line and show him that it was a Dylan song. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/58 "2014-05-27T13:59:54Z")
As I mentioned in a recent thread, I was surprised to learn that “[Seven Bridges Road](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_Road)” wasn’t original to the Eagles. For the longest time, I thought [Act Naturally](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Naturally) was a Lennon-McCartney composition they wrote for Ringo to sing. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/59 "2014-05-27T14:03:00Z")
The Fireball’s biggest hit “Bottle of Wine” is actually the cover song that made me discover Tom Paxton. Who also wrote a helluva lot of songs covered by a helluva lot of artists. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244/60 "2014-05-27T18:22:56Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > As a child of the 80’s, I wasn’t aware for a LONG time that “Cum On Feel the Noize” wasn’t originally by Quiet Riot. Ditto “Smokin’ In the Boys Room” and Motley Crue. I got you beat, as a child of the '70s, in the 80s I figured Quiet Riot (heard on U68’s Power Hour!) were the song’s writers. 30 years later, watching some old episodes of the British '70s TV comedy “Doctor At Sea”, there was a scene in the ship’s disco where the DJ was playing “Cum On Feel the Noize”. OK, sounded a bit off but stilll…wait a minute - that episode was filmed a decade before the Quiet Riot release (the show featured the original Slade, took me a bit to find that out). Seems Quiet Riot quite liked covering Slade, recording “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” as well. Last time we did this type of thread I learned that Material Issue covered “Kim The Waitress” by Green Pajamas (as did Sister Psychic, who’s version is rather good too). I believe that Material Issue’s video is the only one that featured cannabilism, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-didnt-know-were-remakes/689244.md?page=4)