Hey, once you pass 40 what’s the point of trying to pretend you’re stll young and hip? 
(The Broadway version of Hair began the year I was born. The movie was released when I was ten.)
The late Laura Branigan used Diane Warren a lot when she first came on the scene. It really wasn’t a cover version. They took the song and wrote English lyrics to the music
Diane Warren has bascially rewrote the same song for the last 30 years and had hit after hit after hit.
Toni Basil’s “Mickey” which came out about the same time as Branigan’s “Gloria” was also a remake of an old song called “Kitty”
And featured the love of my life, Beverly D’Angelo, topless. Which she has since demonstrated.
And I, as a one-time kid, can only say, “You were 10? You pass the heterosexuality quiz?”
Wife baby-sat a couple of boys who loved the “Shena” series, thunderthighs and all. I mean, did you LOOK at them?" It proved to be true.
The song “Kiss” always confused me.
I thought Prince surely had to cover Tom Jones on that. I mean, Tom Jones is way old, right?
Nope, that one was all Prince, and Tom Jones was just featured in the video by Art of Noise.
Yes.
I know I’ve posted this here in the past, but I was in a band for a while that did a lot of Brel’s songs (in French), and the singer did a translation of Ne Me Quittte Pas for me so I could get a better sense of the song. It is the most tragic lyric ever penned, in my opinion. If You Go Away is a pale shadow. I don’t think it counts as a translation really, just a loosely related text that happens to use the same melody.
To compare, the Jacks version:
Brel:
A lot of people think House of the Rising Sun was an original by The Animals. Here it is, recorded in 1933 by Tom Ashley, who said he learned it from his grandfather.
Tom Clarence Ashley & Gwen Foster: House Of The Rising Sun (1933)
Wow. Lots of versions on that link, including an almost unrecognizable Beatles version. Thanks.
I listened to and thoroughly enjoyed the song “Solsbury Hill” by a little-known band called Glass Moon for years before I ever knew that it was originally done by . . . (excuse me, have to go google this) Peter Gabriel. I still think the Glass Moon version is far and away superior.
Lee Zep weren’t real sticklers for crediting songwriters, so that’s understandable.
Big Mama Thornton.
Godspell used lyrics from several familiar hymns.
All these years I assumed that was spelled “Salisbury Hill.” Have I really never seen it in print?!
Yeah that song is about Peter’s breakup with Genesis..
Hence “Lot of Love” by the great blues bassist Willie Dixon.. one lawsuit later credited 'Whole lot of Love".. Also theirs “When the levee breaks” by Zepp original by Memphis Minnie..
Killing Me Softly With His Song was originally recorded by Lori Lieberman. Roberta Flack’s cover was monster hit, receiving the Grammy for Best Song.
I once read a biography of Barbra Streisand that stated “Elaine Paige’s cover of Steisand’s “Memory” was a top 10 hit in England.” Methinks the author should have verified who’s covering whom?
Shawn Colvin includes Tenderness on the Block on her album Fat City, which I listened to plenty when it was new. It was many years later when I heard Warren Zevon’s original version in a music store.
Well, Elvis was never a songwriter, so it’s not a surprise that all of his songs were written by other people, nor that many of them had been recorded by other people previously.
I’m occasionally surprised when I find that an artist who USUALLY writes his/her own material has recorded a song written by someone else.
For instance, I didn’t learn until after George Harrison’s death that his biggest solo hit, “I Got My Mind Set On You,” was actually an old soul song that James Ray recorded in the early Sixties.
The actual hill (and the song) is indeed spelled Solsbury, and is not in Salisbury.
“I shot the sheriff” it was only after a couple of years that I founf it wasn’t Clapton’s but Marley’s.
“California Dreamin’” by the Beach Boys from the original Mamas and the Papas.
“Hold On” by Santana is actually by Canadian songwriter, Ian Thomas (Dave Thomas’ younger brother).
