“Cat’s in the Cradle” is widely mistakenly credited to artist Cat Stevens, in part due to a mistitled MP3 version of the song widely circulated on the internet. As well, the song and the singer both contain the word, ‘Cat’. In 1977, Stevens’ former label, Deram Records released a compilation album, Cat’s Cradle.[3] Jack Black contributed to this confusion, playing part of the song in a Saturday Night Live sketch where Black’s character claimed the song was by Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens. There are no known verifiable recordings of Cat Stevens performing the song, however, and a Cat Stevens fan web site assures readers that Stevens has never performed the song, “not live, not in the studio, and not even privately”. Stevens did perform a song titled “Father and Son”, but that was very different as the son was unsure of his future and the father is a more self-confident man assuring his son not to worry.
The cover of the song by Ugly Kid Joe is furthermore oftenly confused on the internet for a cover by Guns n’ Roses, a band which never recorded the song. This is due to an incorrect mp3 circulating on for example Limewire which contains the Ugly Kid Joe version even though the file credits it to Guns n’ Roses.[4]
On first glance, a lot of people have mistaken the song Fireflies by Owl City for Ben Gibbard’s side project The Postal Service. The guy’s vocals are very much like Gibbard’s at times, I must admit.
Train - Drops of Jupiter. There was a Black Crowes CD released about the same time and I recall skipping through the tracks on the CD looking for the new Crowes song that was all over the radio. Disappointment followed.
I believed for quite a while that “88 Lines About 44 Women” was by Jim Carroll (It was by the Nails) and that “Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk” was by Toby Keith (it was Trace Adkins).
The first time I heard “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, I thought it was Queen.
Back in the Napster days I went looking for a copy of “A Girl Like You” but wasn’t sure who it was by. Searching on the title turned up a bunch of copies credited to Bowie, and a fair number credited to Iggy Pop. I had assumed the singer was Bowie but thought it might by Iggy instead and turned to Google, which revealed the correct artist. But I don’t think anyone on Napster that night had the song identified as being by Edwyn Collins.
As for “Dream On”, I’m still not wholly convinced it’s Steven Tyler singing! It just does not sound like him. Wikipedia tells me the song was Aerosmith’s very first single, so maybe he just had not yet fully settled into a vocal style.
On the Who album Quadrophenia there’s a brief snippet of their early hit “The Kids Are Alright”. When I first heard Quadrophenia I was largely unfamiliar with the Who’s other work, and assumed it was a Beatles song.
This won’t mean much to most people, but for years this song was mislabeled as being a duet between Annie Lennox and Kate Bush.
Someone (I don’t know who, and I swear it wasn’t me) put it up on the old Napster that way. It got passed around by both Annie fans and Kate fans. For a mistake, it’s pretty cool, because more people have discovered her over the years via that mistake than just about any other way.
Here’s a live version as proof that it’s just her singing both the very low and very high voices.
When I was younger, I thought Come and Get It was sung by the Beatles. It’s actually by Badfinger. But it sounds exactly like something the Beatles would have done. Nothing else Badfinger ever did sounded like this.
Then in 1996 The Beatles Anthology 3 included Paul McCartney doing this song, sounding exactly like it. What happened was that Paul wrote the song, then during the Let it Be sessions, McCartney went into the studio one day by himself, and performed the entire song, multitracking himself on every instrument. He then gave the song to Badfinger, who had signed to the Beatles’ Apple records, on the condition that they perform it exactly as it was performed by McCartney. McCartney also produced the song, chose the lead singer and assigned the harmony parts.
So it sounds like a Beatles song because it is - it’s a cover of a Beatles song that was never released, and tightly controlled by a Beatle so that it sounded as close to the Beatles as possible.
Here’s Paul McCartney’s original version Paul McCartney - Come and Get it. It sounds virtually identical, although it’s clearly Paul’s voice.
Similarly, when the Bee Gees’ single “New York Mining Disaster 1941” was released in America, many U.S. DJs mistakenly assumed the song was by the Beatles, due to the record having a white label with only the title on it. Thus, it was played in heavy rotation, helping the song climb into the top 20. Also complicating the matter was a reference to NEMS Enterprises (Brian Epstein’s management agency, which had just been joined by Bee Gees’ manager Robert Stigwood).
Back in the 1970s, did anybody believe that the band Klaatu was the Beatles? From the link:
I’ll admit, “Sub-Rosa Subway,” and the other songs on the album, do sound like something that the Beatles may have produced in the late-60s. It would be easy to think that if they did reunite in the mid-70s, they would sound like that.
I am ashamed, horribly, terribly and emphatically shamed to admit that I used to think “Let Her Cry” by Hootie and the Blowfish was by Pearl Jam. :smack:
In my defense, I had never heard of Hootie et al. and the only time I heard the song in question was in the acoustically terrible on-campus pub.
My Sirius radio is really teaching me that I don’t know as much about music as I thought I did. I was fairly certain that “Western Union” was by the Monkees. Nope. It’s the Five Americans. But honestly, doesn’t this sound just like the Monkees? Especially the chorus.