a.k.a. “For many years I thought the song ____ was performed by ___!”
I’ve heard Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress many times on the radio. Always assumed it was performed by CCR. It was even in the film The Big Lebowski, along with many other CCR songs, dammit! Today I ran across it on youtube, and to my surprise it’s a song by a band called The Hollies. :smack:
A couple years ago the song A Horse with No Name was on the radio as we drove to a restaurant. I told my daughter, “I’ve always like this song. It’s by Neil Young.” :smack:
Sorry to put the winner so soon in the thread, but I thought “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number” was by Paper (“The Night Chicago Died”) Lace, instead of Steely Dan.
Pop song from the eighties that stood out for me because of my Dad. He’d very indulgently let me listen to my radio station when we’d drive anywhere together. When he died, a song called “My Perogative” was popular. Since 1989 I’d thought this song was by Terence Trent D’Arby. It was only a few months ago while I decided to youtube songs reminding me of that time did I learn it’s by Bobby Brown (ugh).
For ages, I thought that “Twist in My Sobriety” was performed by Annie Lennox. It was pointed out to me on another forum that it was another artist I had never heard of (Tanita Tikaram).
I swore up and down that “I’m Not In Love” was by Paul McCartney till my sister put me straight. It’s actually from a group called 10cc. Either way, I still dislike it.
Gender misattributions:
As a child in the 70s, I thought Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” was sung by a woman. Conversely, I thought the Fleetwood Mac songs sung by Christine McVie (“You Make Loving Fun,” etc.) were sung by a man.
I knew the New Riders of the Purple Sage were kinda sorta a Jerry Garcia side project, and their main singer sounds to me like Jerry, so I always thought it was Jerry. (I might partly have been conflating them with Old and In The Way, which really was a Garcia side-project, though shorter-lived).
Way back when, my dormmate saw a Budweiser commercial featuring The Sundays’ cover of “Wild Horses.” He asked me who it was by; I told him Edie Brickell and New Bohemians. He liked the song enough to buy their album. :smack:
Gender misattributions: Alabama Shakes, Beach House, Silversun Pickups (and probably lots more from my youth that I’ve forgotten)
I had to look this song up by the lyrics, but I always thought that Flagpole Sitta was by Green Day, and not by Harvey Danger (who I’ve never heard of).
Until the Big Bang Theory entered syndication and they started running commercials showing the Barenaked Ladies goofing around with the theme song, I thought it had been performed by They Might Be Giants.
I figured out that “Horse” was America and not Neil Young while the 1970s were still underway, but I did have a few years there where I thought it was a Neil Young song.
“Long Cool Woman” is so atypical of the Hollies that one would almost have to figure someone else recorded the song. If one remembers the Hollies, most of what one remembers is from when Graham Nash was the guiding spirit of the group, before he left for CS&N. “Long Cool Woman” came a few years later, when the Hollies were only kinda sorta the same group anymore.