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jessecuster3
10-09-2009, 12:53 PM
What are some of your favorite songs that you later discovered are covers?

Who did the version you like and who did the original?
The Beast Of Yucca Flats
10-09-2009, 01:29 PM
REM's take on The Clique's "Superman" comes to mind, certainly.
jesse_custer
10-09-2009, 01:44 PM
"Brand New Cadillac" by The Clash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2WXlaWv2u0)

Was a Vince Taylor song originally.
jessecuster3
10-09-2009, 01:46 PM
REM's take on The Clique's "Superman" comes to mind, certainly.

Whoa I had no idea of that one, nice!
The Beast Of Yucca Flats
10-09-2009, 01:49 PM
Whoa I had no idea of that one, nice!

For your listening pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpFxVOUWldM
parrish
10-09-2009, 02:40 PM
I listened to Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" from age 11 to age 19 or so thinking he had written it.

I think the Bob Dylan version in American Beauty made me realize it wasn't written by Hendrix.
The Beast Of Yucca Flats
10-09-2009, 09:49 PM
I also loved Paul Weller's "I Walk On Guilded Splinters" when I first heard it on The Wire, but had no idea it was a Dr. John tune (hell, I'd never even heard of Dr. John *period* at the time). A trip to the internet set me straight, though.
HU5H
10-11-2009, 12:50 PM
I listened to Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" from age 11 to age 19 or so thinking he had written it.

I think the Bob Dylan version in American Beauty made me realize it wasn't written by Hendrix.

Same for me, only it was the Dave Matthews Band version.
howyadoin
10-11-2009, 01:28 PM
Up until the time when Britney Spears did her godawful, grounds-for-the-death-penalty cover of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", I had no idea that it wasn't a Joan Jett original.
HU5H
10-11-2009, 01:52 PM
I first heard Long Black Veil on the DMB live album Listener Supported. Found out later it’s a 1959 song by a country singer, Lefty Frizzell. I’ve still never heard the original.
rick
10-11-2009, 01:56 PM
I was pretty surprised to find out back in the '80's that both The Go-Go's version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" were covers.
The Black Guardian
10-11-2009, 02:28 PM
I was pretty surprised to find out back in the '80's that both The Go-Go's version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" were covers.
"Our Lips Are Sealed" is a Go-Go's original. It was written by Wiedlin and Terry Hall (of Fun Boy Three), but recorded and released first by the Go-Go's.

I, too, thought "Watchtower" was a Hendrix original for a long time.
John Asperger
10-11-2009, 04:57 PM
I first heard Long Black Veil on the DMB live album Listener Supported. Found out later it’s a 1959 song by a country singer, Lefty Frizzell. I’ve still never heard the original.
...I'm thinking Frizzel's might have been the original recording , and a Nashville writer whose name escapes me now the writer or co- , remember that Nashville still revolves more around the " non-performing songwriter " thing:tongue: ...Often to excellent effect , let me not be mistaken !
wordgeist
10-12-2009, 04:08 PM
the "Halleluyah" song from Shreck its a very old song by Leonard Cohen i was really surprised to find out the original its much better
Sid
10-12-2009, 10:09 PM
I listened to Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" from age 11 to age 19 or so thinking he had written it.

I think the Bob Dylan version in American Beauty made me realize it wasn't written by Hendrix.

First time I heard Dylan's version I thought 'Man, Dylan sure f'd up this Hendrix tune.' :biggrin:
Jonathan Bogart
10-12-2009, 10:29 PM
David Bowie's cover of Ron Davies' "It Ain't Easy" always sounded so much of a piece with the rest of Ziggy Stardust that I had probably listened to the album a hundred times before I realized it was a cover -- and that Bowie hadn't even been the first to cover it.

(I have four versions of the song now: Davies' original, only ever released on 45, the version Long John Baldry cut with Maggie Bell on the 1971 album of the same name, Bowie's Ziggy Stardust recording, and a version cut by Bettye LaVette in 1972 but unreleased until last year. They're all very different and all great.)
Spike-X
10-14-2009, 03:04 AM
Imagine my surprise when I purchased the entire Bruce Springsteen discography at the age of fifteen, and putting the needle down on track one, side one of Greetings From Asbury Park...

"Bruce Springsteen wrote Blinded By The Light? but this sounds nothing like Manfred Mann's version!"

Then a few months later getting my first bootleg and hearing both Fire and Because The Night.