When I hear the first few seconds of a song on the radio, I often mistake it for another song with a similar intro. It happens all the time athough I can only think of one pitiful example right now:
Queen’s “Under Pressure” often gets played on classic rock stations and I almost always get faked out and think that it is going to be Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”. In a just world, I should be relieved that it is not but I actually like “Ice Ice Baby” better than “Under Pressure” so I am always disappointed.
My old ska-punk band, Baker Act, used to have a song called “Shelley’s Got Friends,” which opened with the horns playing the guitar riff from the Violent Femmes’ “Blister In the Sun.” We used to fake everyone out when we played that song, making them think we were playing a ska cover of “Blister” until the lyrics started. Later on, we changed the riff so it wasn’t a straight swipe.
I was just listening to the new Nickel Creek CD and the song “Best of Luck” sounded like Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” to me. Then there’s the tease of Soho’s “Hippy Chick” that teases the listened of the song “How Soon is Now?” by the Smiths.
Along similar lines, whenever I start to hear “Beverly Hills” by Weezer, I always think it’s going to be “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band. You could just superimpose one song over the other.
Me First And The Gimme Gimmes are terrific at doing this intentionally with some of their cover songs. Two examples:
Their cover of The Turtles’ Elanor begins with the guitar riff and bass lines from The Clash’s London Calling.
Their cover of The Beach Boys’ Sloop John B starts out with drum beat from The Ramones’ Teenage Lobotomy…even down to chanting “Sloop John B” in the intro, rather than “Lobotomy”.
A little more in tune with the OP, the intro to The Strokes’ Last Night was a more than blatent ripoff of Tom Petty’s American Girl.
AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” and Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” are indistinguishable until after the second toll of the bell. If you hear a third toll without guitars, it’s AC/DC.
When this was widely circulating, I listened to the two intros in succession and decided that, although they were kinda similar, you’d have to be not actually listening to think that they’re the same.
Okay, this is really stupid, but this is the stuff I listen to…
I have a burned CD that I put together to listen to at work. “Eclectic” is a criminally deficient way of describing the song mix. Anyway, I have both “Blame Canada!” from the South Park movie and the title song from the Cole Porter show “Anything Goes” on there, and I swear their intros are exactly the same. Even the first line of lyrics is the same (though I CAN tell the difference between Sheila Broflovski and Patti LuPone. Honest, I can!)
AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” and Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” are indistinguishable until after the second toll of the bell. If you hear a third toll without guitars, it’s AC/DC.
When this was widely circulating, I listened to the two intros in succession and decided that, although they were kinda similar, you’d have to be not actually listening to think that they’re the same.
Are you sure you’re not thinking of SMB’s “Rockin’ Me”? That intro always reminded me of “All Right Now” – a band I was in once did a medley of the two of them.
Heartbreaker, probably?
Haven’t heard it in awhile so I’ve forgotten what song it was, but a ways back there was a song identical for the first 4 bars’ worth to Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water. Dah dah domm, dah dah deh domm, dah dah domm deh dah dommm… then instead of repeating it did something different and became some other song.
The other day I was listening to the radio and heard the opening of Rick James’ Superfreak. My mind actually supplied the vocal by MC Hammer (“Can’t Touch This”) just before the song continued with the rest of Superfreak.
Isn’t it odd that the same bit is in both of the songs that are arguably the respective artists’ greatest hits?
