Until very recently I had always assumed Venus by The Shocking Blue was sung by a dude.
I have no idea why.
mmm
Here’s mine: I thought “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum was a Tom Petty number. It still sounds to me like Petty, even though I know better.
And here I always thought that song was by Bananarama.
I somehow knew “Horse With No Name” was going to be one of the first listed. That one comes up a lot in these sorts of discussions. Of course, I hope to God Neil Young would never write a lyrics as bad as “cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain” (or whatever it is exactly.)
For me, I always need to check myself when attributing “Magic Carpet Ride.” I always want to say it’s Steve Miller Band rather than Steppenwolf, for some reason.
As for the gender bending thing–the first dozen or so times I heard “Sexy Back,” I thought it was a chick singing it. Felt quite silly when I learned it was Justin Timberlake.
Fortunately, the Steve Miller Band hadn’t yet hit the big time when Steppenwolf was having their big year in 1968, so I avoided that particular confusion.
Not mine, but rather a close friend’s: back when it was released, she thought Heart’s “Crazy On You” was Grace Slick, presumably with Jefferson Starship.
Except for replacing Graham Nash’s guitar and high harmonies with Terry Sylvester’s, The Hollies were the almost exactly the same group in 1972 as they were in 1964. (Well, we could talk about them changing non-singing bass players in 1966, but let’s not get too esoteric.)
What threads like this bring home to me is the considerable difference between the casual music fan and the music freak. I was the latter, so I wasn’t subject to any of these misperceptions. I listened to the radio avidly, and knew exactly who performed (and didn’t perform) every song.
In the case of “Long Cool Woman,” as a huge fan of The Hollies, I knew Alan Clarke’s voice quite well, and recognized it easily despite the absence of the usual surrounding harmonies. There’s little similarity between his voice and John Fogerty’s, and the guitar sound of LCW is not similar to CCR’s at all. The only thing the songs have in common is the slap-back echo applied to the vocals. To me, that seems a thin thread to hang a soundalike comparison on.
Speaking of which, I will cop to a first-time misattribution, one that went away as soon as I heard the DJ back-announce the song.
When I first heard “Holding Back the Years” by Simply Red, I thought “Wow, Buffy Ste. Marie has finally scored a Top 40 hit!”
I was amazed when I learned, not too long ago, that “Rescue Me” was by Fontella Bass, not Aretha Franklin as I had thought ever since, oh, forever.
When “All the Young Dudes” first came out, I had this theory that it was the Beatles recording under assumed identities. (Hey, I was in high school.)
Until just recently (as in, a couple of weeks) I’d always believedLake Shore Drive was a Simon and Garfunkel song. Even after discovering the truth, I could swear I’ve never before in my life heard of Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah. I love that song. It’s one of the best songs ever made. I feel like I’ve slipped through a blip in the matrix. Surely in the universe I’m from, Simon and Garfunkel did “Lake Shore Drive”.
:eek:
I…uh…MATRIX, I tell you!
Interesting bit of trivia, there: World Without Love was the first Lennon-McCartney composition that was originally released by someone other than the Beatles.
I had no idea this was Paul’s song. Here’s his demo.
ETA: And I didn’t realize Peter was Peter Asher, the brother of Paul’s beau Jane Asher.
I frequently confuse Leo Sayer songs with Supertramp’s and visa versa.
For years I thought I Love LA was by Huey Lewis and the News.
WTF? There’s no, absolutely no, in fact zero similarity there. That guy sounds like Jim Morrison about the same as Peewee Herman sounds like Jim Morrison.
I thought “House of the Rising Sun,” was performed by The Doors for the longest time. Along with the Horse with no name / Neil Young thing. Wonder if he’s ever covered it?
Beats the shit out of me why I thought that, but I did.
There are a number of other peoples confessions in this thread that are at least as strange as mine. go pick on them for a while, mkay?
No hard feelings. 
I really like the Doors, so this one hit close to home for me.
I thought the oeuvre of the band “Kill Hannah” was by Shirley Manson (Garbage), and not somebody else who was also male. Doesn’t help that the band has a girl’s name in it. I thought VU’s “Heroin” was the Doors because I think it was in the movie.
With Napster and later more legal venues, misattributions happened all the time. Yes, this song has a male singer and he is doing a parody of another song. Therefore, it “must” be by Weird Al Yankovic.
Gender misattributions can really be a thread of their own. I thought, among others, that the band Yazoo aka Yaz (“Situation”) was a male singer. Everyone gets mixed up by Q Lazzarus (“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me.”) as well. See above, also.
Or “There were plants and birds and rocks and things.”
That song is by one of the most prolific artists of all time, “Traditional.” For such a huge group, I’m surprised I don’t see more of their memorabilia around.