The Mad World version by Gary Jules is actually a cover of Tears For Fears' original:
- Gary Jules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4
- Tears For Fears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZvPSpLxCg
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Live and Let Die, I thought the Guns N' Roses version was the original...
Years later I found out it was Paul McCartney and the Wings.
Just "Wings." No "the." Although maybe Paul will see this and it'll annoy him a little. In which case, it's "Paul MacHeartnay and the Wings."
You are right it's "Paul McCartney and Wings". As strange as it sounds to me.
I heard Alien Ant Farm's cover of Smooth Criminal way before I ever heard the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDl9ZMfj6aE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_D3VFfhvs4
Also, Anthrax's Got the Time turned out to be a Joe Jackson cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7iNHw8QoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTIPCc1nKYQ
Greetings fellow 35 year old.
"I Put a Spell on You" is commonly attributed to CCR since they covered it on their debut album, but it's actually a Screamin' Jay Hawkins original.
The now infamous Billy Ray Cyrus debut single, "Achey Brakey Heart", was actually a cover of The Marcy Brothers' "Don't Tell My Heart". They were released within a year of each other but the Cyrus cover exploded in popularity in Australia (yes, Australia), and the rest is history.
Cyndi Lauper's biggest hit, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", was a Robert Hazard cover.
Elvis Presley had a really bad habit of ripping off lesser known (black) blues artists. As in, of the 24 songs off his first 2 albums, 20 of them were covers, bad.
There's so many more I can think of off the top of my head, like Johny Cash's cover of NIN's "Hurt" getting Trent Reznor to say it "wasn't my song anymore" after seeing the video, but I think that'll do for now.
"Mad World" is the classic "what do you mean that's a cover?" song... here are some great ones that I haven't seen mentioned yet:
- Nine Inch Nails "Dead Souls" (from The Crow soundtrack) is a Joy Division cover.
- Guns 'N Roses "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is a Bob Dylan cover.
- Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You" is a Dolly Parton cover.
- Nirvana's "The Man Who Sold the World" is a David Bowie cover.
- Fugees "Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a Roberta Flack cover, but Roberta Flack's version is also a cover, it was initially recorded by Lorie Lieberman.
Many of the songs Nirvana recorded for MTV Unplugged were covers. Love their rendition of In the Pines.
And since you brought up Nine Inch Nails, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Johnny Cash's Hurt being a cover. That's the paradigm example for me.
Good one! It was certainly an unexpected cover when it was released, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Johnny Cash version had overshadowed the original in terms of audience familiarity. I'm also fond of Nine Inch Nails' cover of Queen's "Get Down Make Love", it was a rather niche track for both bands - so much so that despite being a Queen fan, I heard the NIN version first.
I once did an entire 2 hour radio show on this very subject.
There were some genuine surprises to me when I was doing the research for this one.
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The Lion Sleeps Tonight has been covered so many times that the Disney version sung by Nathan Lane (Timon) and Ernie Sabella (Pumbaa) in the original Lion King movie is essentially a cover of a cover.
Funily enough, after the movie's release, they released a new version of the cover with the female vocals of Lebo M alongside the other two.
Got sued for the whole thing, but it ended up as you'd expect with Disney.
Another one is Tainted Love by Soft Cell, which was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in '64. My mind's blowing a little bit because because Soft Cell's version was released in '81, which means it was covered less than 20 years later and their version was released over 40 years ago. Don't know why, but that seems fucking wild to me.
Like, the time between the original and cover compared to how long the cover has been around.
For some reason I thought the original was older.
A bit more history: Gloria Jones' version of Tainted Love was big on the Northern Soul underground dance scene in the industrial cities in the north of England in the late 60s/early 70s. Marc Almond knew it from there. Northern Soul DJs sought out overlooked gems and gave new life to a particular style of older songs from northern industrial cities in the US ❤️
Little bit of pop trivia for you.....
The version that was covered by Tight Fit that was an 80s one hit wonder in the UK, was produced by Tim Friese-Greene.
He also produced "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby and was also a co-writer, producer and player on Talk Talk's final three albums!
According to some guy trying to neg me at a party once, my favorite song by a band I like.
A significant portion of Led Zeppelin songs are covers. Lots of old Blues artists. https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/17/covers#nav-entity
i just found out recently that Fuel My Fire by The Prodigy is a cover originally by L7, which L7 took from parts of another punk song
I didn't know Planet Caravan by Pantera was a a cover of Black Sabbath until my dad pointed it out. I like the original but I think the cover is a bit better.
Paint it Black by gob. I think it's funny that I was listening to a relatively small Canadian rock band before I learned about The Rolling Stones.
Take On Me by Reel Big Fish (but I found out within a day or two.)
A longer episode was Such Great Heights by Iron and Wine. I could have sworn Postal Service was the cover....but I was wrong. So wrong.
One that I was surprised to learn that I like to share is Grace Jones 'Private Life' was originally by The Pretenders.
Hynde is quoted as saying: Like all the other London punks, I wanted to do reggae, and I wrote "Private Life". When I first heard Grace's version I thought 'Now that's how it's supposed to sound!' In fact it was one of the highpoints of my career - what with Sly and Robbie being the masters, and Grace Jones with her scorching delivery.
Not really a cover but it used such a huge chunk that it pretty much is...
Beyonce "Crazy In Love" is basically The Chi-lites "Are You My Woman"
imma feelin old. i remember well when many of these originals came out 😂
Twist and Shout is not by the Beatles.
Radiohead is just a Muse cover band
Type O Negative's Summer Breeze is originally a song by Seals and Crofts
Apparently Peter had much ruder lyrics ready to go but the label told him he couldn't do them. Mr. Bungle sort of covered it on their new live album, too, and took a lot of liberties with the lyrics.
Nirvana's Where Did You Sleep Last Night is the cover of a Leadbelly song
It's weird you didn't know that because in their only recording of it, Kurt says "this is a Leadbelly song" before it starts
Most people experienced the song through CD or radio play of the Unplugged in New York album version, which cut right to the start of the song.
But in a topical twist, Kurt Cobain didn't realize Leadbelly was doing a cover as well, LOL.
Betty Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes was a cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPOIS5taqA8
The original was by Jackie Deshannon:
Tricky's Something In the Way is a Nirvana cover. I was more of a Tricky fan than a Nirvana fan so it took me forever to figure that out.
On Disturb's album 10,000 Fist is a song called Land of Confusion. First listened to the album way back in the mid 2000's.
Around 2006 or so I heard the same song being played on the speakers at the Ikea I worked at but it was a lot softer than I expected. Turns out it was originally done by a band called Genesis.
Both version slap but in different ways.
The video for Land of Confusion was straight nightmare fuel for children everywhere.
I think this is a great example of a cover capturing the spirit of the song more than the original. The Genesis version is good, but the lyrics and theme I think are projected better when Disturbed covered it.
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Louie Louie was originally by Richard Berry. Unlike the Kingsmen’s more famous cover, this is completely intelligible.
Kinda going back to that post I did the other day about Ska, but The Clash's cover of Wrong Em Boyo, which was originally by The Rulers.
I recently learned that Always Something There to Remind Me is not in fact originally by Naked Eyes, but was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and first performed by Dionne Warwick
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