I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but a few days ago I very nearly posted something in the retro music genre thread about how the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Love Rollercoaster” had a very 1970s sound. Then I Googled the song, and realized the original version of that song was released in 1975, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers version is a cover. So of course it sounds like a 1970s song, and doesn’t really sound for purposes of that other thread. And now that I think about it, I’m sure I’ve heard the original before, but somehow it didn’t register that it wasn’t the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
As another example, I discovered the band They Might Be Giants when I was in college, circa 1998. One of the first songs of theirs I heard was “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. I don’t remember exactly when I figured it out, but I’m sure it wasn’t until years later that I realized TMBG didn’t write that song, but rather it’s a cover of an old song from the 1950s.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s had moments of discovering a song is actually a cover of an older song, so please share your stories.
I do know that several of J.J. Cale’s songs got covered by other artists and were popular. For example:
Cocaine (Eric Clapton)
Call me the Breeze (Lynyrd Skynrd, etc…)
After Midnight (Eric Clapton, etc…)
And probably most surprisingly, Johnny Cash’s famous “Ring of Fire” was actually first recorded and released by his sister-in-law Anita Carter. So it’s a cover.
I’m usually quite good at identifying covers, because I know a lot of songs, but one that tricked me (and countless others) was “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. I didn’t know for years after it came out that it was a Dolly Parton cover. Maybe I first learned that fact here at this board.
ETA: Another one that came to mind: I never knew for a long time that “Rivers Of Babylon” by Boney M was a cover (it originally was on the “The Harder They Come” soundtrack, the name of the band escapes me now). The original is much better.
And then there’s the complicated case of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. I’ve known Marvin Gaye’s version for a long time and always thought that was the original version. When I first heard the CCR version, I thought it was a Marvin Gaye cover. Later I heard Gladys Knight and The Pips’ version, and thought the same. Wrong, at the time the Pips were a Motown act like Gaye and were handed the song earlier than him and had a hit with it. But that’s not the end of the story (or the beginning, respectively). The Miracles had been the first to record it in 1966, but that version only got released two years later on an album. Of course, there are similar histories of other Motown songs, because they almost all were written by staff writers who might or mightn’t be identical with the recording artists.
Come to think of if, there were a lot of songs from that era where the band that popularized a song wasn’t actually the first band to record it. I, like probably a lot of people, long believed the Kingsman’s version of “Louis Louis” was the original, when it had actually been recorded by several different artists before them.
Most people, myself included, probably think of “Blue Suede Shoes” as an Elvis Presley song. It was originally recorded by Carl Perkins, making Elvis’s version is a cover.
For completeness: the group were the Melodians. And a recommendation for everybody to listen to the “The Harder They Come” soundtrack: I’ve never seen the film, but it’s one of the greatest soundtrack albums (and compilation albums actually) of all time.
The Beatles and other early rock groups covered songs from the 40s or even earlier. 'Til There Was You comes to mind immediately; written in 1950 by Meredith Wilson. Spanky and Our Gang covered Stardust, a 1927 Hoagy Carmichael song. Most of those songs were new to me and I didn’t find out until much later that they were covers.
The concept of a cover is a little different for Tin Pan Alley songs–most songs were written by songwriters and shopped around, often recorded by multiple acts even when new, or featured in Broadway and Hollywood musicals. Some of these older songs recorded in the rock era include “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” by the Mamas & the Papas, “I Only Have Eyes For You,” by the Flamingos, “Blue Moon,” by the Marcels, and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” by the Platters.
This is like the Handbags and Gladrags story, which I’m sure has been booted around on this board before. Written by Mike d’Abo, first recorded by Chris Farlowe (and produced by Mike d’Abo) - so that’s the original (kinda - see later) and then it seems like every generation produced a recording which is mistaken for the original - I always thought that the Rod Stewart version was the original. Younger persons assume The Stereophonics, and so on. And after all that, it turns out that the original recording, albeit a demo, was actually by Mike d’Abo (source.)
I don’t think this one should count, since Hazard’s version was never officially released. Lots of composers record private demos of songs before handing them off to other artists to debut. For example, nobody calls Badfinger’s Come And Get It a cover, even though Paul McCartney wrote and recorded an unreleased demo of it.
I just had a reverse feeling of this. With Obama’s inspiration song list recently put out, I was worried that I didn’t know that “the Weight” was an Aretha Franklin song.
Mack the Knife started life as a 1920s German opera piece. I didn’t know that until I recently heard the original version from Die Dreigroschenoper on Sirius XM.
I didn’t know she covered “The Weight,” either.
Earlier this year my wife was playing some celebrity Superjam Version of it–I had to listen to the original to cleanse my ears:
