I’ve long wondered which was written first. I would have assumed it was more likely for Joe South to hear a Beatles song than vice versa, but then the Beatles did cover Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally”. But the timing seems to make the question moot.
And a small correction to my description: Paul’s middle part of ADitL starts in triple meter, but switches to duple when the “Hush” melody begins.
Just stumbled across another song I didn’t realise was (a sort of) cover version and felt I had to resurrect this zombie.
The usually melancholic 80s synth / pop band Talk Talk were well known in the UK. Possibly best known (if at all) in the US when No Doubt covered their song It’s My Life:
Talk Talk It’s My Life
No Doubt It’s My Life
However that’s not the example I came here to give. Here is Talk Talk with their second single the eponymous Talk Talk.
What I never previously knew was Talk Talk formed from an early ‘Garage Rock’ punky guitar band The Reaction who had a song called Talk Talk Talk Talk
TCMF-2L
80 percent of the world still doesn’t realize Elvis Costello’s "peace love and understanding " is a cover …
here’s him singing it with nick lowe the originator
Doesn’t Dave namecheck Smiley Lewis in his version?
Nat King Cole’s “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” is not an original tune. It’s borrowed from a German song.
Back in the late 70’s I had no idea New York Groove was first done by a group named Hello.
I’ve been listing to a streaming oldies station (a reincarnation of the station I listened to as a kid.) They have an amazingly deep play list.
So Hot Rod Lincoln comes on but it’s not Commander Cody and HLPA! What? Turns out the song dates to 1955.
Scottish pop band The Bluebells had a UK number 1 hit with Young At Heart in 1993 after the song was used in a TV advert by the VW motor company. It had already been a number 8 hit in 1984. The song had a distinctive violin part throughout.
However the earliest version of the song was by the girl group Bananarama who failed to chart in 1983 with this simpler arrangement
This is one of those songs where it can be argued it’s not a cover version since it has a co-writing credit between members from both bands.
TCMF-2L
The original Jesus Is Just Alright (1966) by The Art Reynolds Singers.
The version by The Doobie Bros was the only one I knew.
Never heard The Byrd’s cover either.
I’m not sure if this is a cover or an interpolation of Amapola (since a lot of the lyrics don’t appear on lyrics sheets of the original), but when I first heard this it sounded so quintessentially psychedelic that I was sure it was an original. They also have a good cover of Train Kept a Rollin’ earlier in the album.
Travis Tritt - T.R.O.U.B.L.E. was a hit country song in 1992 and was the title of the album as well. Turns out the song is much older, written by Jerry Chesnut and first recorded by Elvis Presley. I had no idea.
Mountain Goats - Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise --fits so completely in their “broken relationship” catalogue, I never questioned it being an original. But it’s a cover.
Original was by Trembling Blue Stars.
Responding to an old part of the thread with a mostly irrelevant personal anecdote but…
Not only did I not know this was a cover but the first time I heard the song, it was watching the video on MTV and I wondered if it was my ex-girlfriend. She was a soft-voiced sometimes singer/guitarist who looked more like Natalie Imbruglia in that video than I have ever seen Natalie Imbruglia look since. I watched the video the first time and missed the name at the end. Then I heard the song on the radio without the DJ announcing the singer. Finally, I saw the video again and watched closely. Everything about the singer’s look. demeanor, voice, and subject matter told me it could be my ex-girlfriend. Even when I saw Natalie Imbruglia’s name on screen, I wondered if she just took a stage name. I was really hoping my ex-girlfriend landed on her feet after a rough patch and got a recording deal. Of course, I was wrong.
Poor Poor Pitiful Me - Linda Ronstadt 1977, right?
Nope. Warren Zevon 1976.
I met a girl at the rainbow bar
She asked me if I’d beat her
She took me back to the hired house…
I don’t wanna talk about it
Don’t think Linda did much of her own music. Great vocalist; wonderful arrangements; she just didn’t write them. Joe Cocker is similar. You Are So Beautiful, probably his biggest hit, was written and recorded by Billy Preston.
I came here to post What A Man, but someone else already had.
So, here is the original The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face sung by Peggy Seeger.
And here is the one I knew by Roberta Flack.
I didn’t know that Elvis Costello’s “peace love and understanding” was a cover or about 15 years …
With David Lindley’s recent passing, I was looking up “Mercury Blues” on YouTube. I knew Alan Jackson’s version was a cover, but I’d always thought Lindley had written it. Surprised to find out that he adapted the song from a 1948 record called “Mercury Boogie” by the K.C. Douglass Trio.
Going back to the RHCP, when I first heard it in the eary 90’s I never knew that Higher Ground was a cover of a Stevie Wonder song. Years later when I heard it on an “oldies” station, I was a bit taken aback that something “that recent” would be on there. Only later did I find about about the Stevie version which is in retrospect obviously what I’d heard.
Just goes to show that Stevie Wonder was ahead of his time in the seventies. Sadly, he lost his magic touch sometime in the eighties.