Had a revelation this morning while listening to a HonkyTonk playlist on Spotify that Jerry Reed originally made Amos Moses. For YEARS I just thought it was a Primus song as it has that vibe Les Claypool puts out.
Another for me was Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd. I originally heard it on Headbangers Ball by Voivod and had no idea it was a cover. A few years later I discovered that it was a cover and to this day Pink Floyd and Voivod are two of my favorite bands.
So, What songs did you surprisingly find out were covers some time after hearing the song by the cover artist?
“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.
Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower, originally Bob Dylan
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.
This is great. Me and a buddy are gonna sit down and listen to it this evening.
Thank you for saying so! I enjoyed doing that show.
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.
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.
The video for Land of Confusion was straight nightmare fuel for children everywhere.
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.
Tennessee Ernie Ford - 16 Tons - a cover of a Merle Travis song
Police On My Back by The Clash was originally done by a group called The Equals.
Apparently these are actually pretty well-known covers but I only found out a few years after:
- Tina Turner’s Proud Mary is originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Judas Priest’s The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown) is a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song
- Whiskey in the Jar is apparently an Irish traditional song, so both Thin Lizzy’s and Metallica’s (and also the Dubliners’) can be said to be covers
whiskey in the jar was one of mine. another is Natalie imbruglia’s cover of “torn” - the original is by a band called Ednaswap, and there are at least a couple of distinct versions by them, fairly radically different from each other.
I had no idea about the Judas Priest cover! Wow.
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.
Louie Louie was originally by Richard Berry. Unlike the Kingsmen’s more famous cover, this is completely intelligible.
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
I first heard The Nurse Who Loved Me from A Perfect Circle. I also thought it was the weakest song on the album, but when I saw them live it was awesome. Turns out they played it closer to the original Failure version. Also that entire Failure album is fantastic.
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.
When I was in middle school I didn’t realize how many of Reel Big Fish’s songs were covers until late in high school, obviously that’s kind of their shtick but when you don’t have access to a big list of nearly every song things slip by you pretty easily, this experience is probably less common these days with streaming etc.
I didn’t know primus covered Amos Moses I’m much more familiar with the original track I’ll have to check that out seems like a great fit.
@DingoFan@beehaw.org Nothing Compares 2 U. I’d only heard the Sinead O’Connor version for years. Didnt know it was written by Prince for The Family.
@DingoFan@beehaw.org and then I find out she passed away today 😔
chris cornell did an amazing cover of the song as well.
