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It's easy to not realise that a famous tune is in fact not the initial version. So today we are going to take a look at 34 songs where the most well-known version isn't really the initial.
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34 Songs You Didn't Know Are Covers
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I think you came up with the word “outshadowed” (a cross between “overshadowed” and “outshone”?), which I’ve never heard before. We’ll have to see whether it catches on and anyone covers it.
@@simonvaughan6017 haha I didnāt catch that but thatās hilarious. I think I will cover it myself š
Always outshadowed, never outgunned.
Outshadow would be when you’re overshadowing a third thing more.
If we are not careful this comment will outshadow the video.
@@jhsounds Or indeed, overgunned
When I learned that ‘It Must Be Love’ and ‘Something Inside So Strong’ were made by the same person I was floored. Labbi Siffre is one of the greatest musicians of his time and really isn’t talked about enough
He also made songs that Eminem and Kanye west sampled. Heās a very good writer and did more than people expect
I know “I Got The” because Eminem sampled it up.
It Must Be Love is the perfect running song – try it!
Guy Chambers who was in World Party produced the Robbie Williams version of āSheās the Oneā and used musicians from World Party to record the cover. So itās not surprising it sounds similar. Williams has repeatedly claimed he wrote the song, upsetting Karl Wallinger, the actual writer, who was recovering from a brain aneurysm when the cover version became a hit.
Rip Karl
feels like half of these are covers of classic r&b and soul numbers
why imitate anything but the best?
I was surprised by the inclusion of so many of these songs, but I realize this is the perspective of a person who grew up in the UK, well past the ’70s. There are (were) probably fifty other ’50s and ’60s well-known soul songs that were covered by mainstream and white artists. If you grew up in the U.S. in the ’60s and ’70s and listened to “right of the dial” AM stations, you knew most of the original versions of these songs …
Yeah weird huh
ā@@bigboy6704why imitate
@@CrowClouds if you’ve ever started any creative endeavor you’d understand. skill isn’t accumulated over night, usually people gain it by imitation
“Tainted Love” by Soft Cell was originally recorded by Gloria Jones. Gloria was also romantically involved and had a child with Marc Bolen of T. Rex. She was driving the car that crashed and fatally injured Marc in 1977.
Gloria was also a songwriter for Motown
Her original version of Tainted Love is brilliant.
one of my favourite cover songs is “The Door’s: Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar).” It was actually a cover of The German opera song written in 1929 by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.
Of course Brecht also got the charts with Mack the Knife
@@michelfouche4599 How could i forget, love mack the knife.
“The First Cut Is the Deepest” was a hit for Rod Stewart, then Sheryl Crow, but was originally done by its writer, Cat Stevens.
The version I prefer is by PP Arnold
It’s been covered like 6 times.
actually technically originally released by P.P. Arnold before Cat Stevens cut his own version
@@dobs407 The main point there, I think, is that Cat Stevens wrote it.
@@KingoftheJuice18 yeah I was just offering a technicality
There’s a crazy back story about the writing of Dancing in the Moonlight
@@randallpink13 yeah Iāve heard about that!
I watched the Professor of Rock video on YouTube about that song.
Honestly, I wish I hadnāt learned the real meaning. I just thought it was a fun, carefree party song
A couple of facts I’d like to add:
It blurs the line if “cover” a bit, since Dave “Doc” Robinson, leas singer of King Harvest, was the bass player for Boffalongo and sang the low harmony on that version. But it’s true that Sherman Kelly, who wrote the song, doesn’t play in King Harvest’s recording of the song.
Also, Toploader’s version belongs to the album called Onka’s Big Moka, which is the name of a 1976 BBC documentary of the same name.
How someone could write a song like that after what happened just amazes me!
“Midnight Train to Georgia” is a cover of the obscure “Midnight Plane to Houston” recorded a year or so earlier.
Nice! I didn’t know that!
by Jim Weatherly
Slight correction: āI Fought the Lawā was written by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets and recorded after Buddy Hollyās death.
Pedant alert; Sonny Curtis had written it prior to joining the Crickets after Holly’s death
Sonny also wrote the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore show
@@outtathyme5679 and “Walk right back” which was a hit for the Everly Brothers
@@outtathyme5679 Wow! Nice!
Correction: “I Fought the Law” was written by Scott Joplin following the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The law referred to in the song is one forbidding parking a horseless carriage in a horse-drawn carriage zone. Joplin (or rather, his driver) parked a Benz Velocipede in the horse zone and was issued a parking citation in the amount of four cents, which he contested in court but lost. (See Collier, et. al. “That Time That Scott Joplin Went to Court Over Four Cents: Just Stick to Writing Ragtime.”)
āWithout Youā is another candidate for a song where people think they know the original but in fact not even that is the original.
And for a recent one, I was surprised that BeyoncĆ©ās āIf I were a Boyā was a cover.
Aw shmoot.
I know Nilsson’s version is the original.
Of course it is. I know that for a fact.
And now I’m going to have to look it up and find that I’m completely wrong.
…And after looking it up, Wikipedia tells me that Everybody’s Talkin’ is also a cover.
Is nothing I know true?
@@alwillcox I hear you.
this whole video is just a big “well ackshually” and i love it
šš
I didn’t even know “I put a spell on you” was covered. the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins original is so iconic!
Ditto. I didn’t know about the Nina Simone version. I was eight when the Screamin’ version came out. Naturally, I loved it.
Creedence Clearwater Revival also did a cover of it.
Seriously, this version is way more well known than the Nina Simone or even the CCR covers.
@@ociemitchell I love the CCR version. It’s got great solos in it.
ā@iankrasnow5383 nahh.. more than Nina yes,but CCR’s version is great.. the arrangement and his voice on it the way he sings it is gripping like Screamin’s
“Unchained Melody” was originally recorded as a song track for the 1955 movie “Unchained”. Recorded by Todd Duncan, an African-American opera singer, the version we are all most familiar with is the 1965 cover by the Righteous Brothers.
Actually, Al Hibbler recorded it, then the Righteous Brothers.
This is many years after , but U2 did a really cool version of it
All true, but if you approach your girlfriend from behind when sheās working on a pottery wheel, you have to go with the Righteous Brothers. š
As someone who is often fed up with today’s remake/cover culture (especially with the songs coming out only 2-3 years later), it’s very calming to realize it has essentially always been that way. I didn’t know that covers came out so soon after the original in the past.
Duh welcome to recorded music – when bands didnāt have to be there anymore, music changed
It’s crazy how often I see “All Along the Watchtower” referred to as a Jimi Hendrix song, by people apparently unaware of Bob Dylan
Dylan has been quoted saying that he preferred Jimi’s versionĀ
and that it was now his song.
@@UrbanGarden-rf5op Same with Hurt by Johnny Cash, but it is still a cover. At least with Hurt it’s more openly known, but it’s kind of wild how few people realize Jimi’s version is a cover. (I also prefer Jimi’s version as a die hard Dylan fan.)
Knock knock knocking on heavenās door is another song that Dylan originally wrote. š
@@dwc1964 or how tainted love wasnāt by soft cell. The original version of that song by Gloria jones is in gta San Andreas. Youād think music from that game series would be more well known.
Yes, but even Bob has acknowledged that Jimiās is the definitive version. I mean he really took it to another level
Never even knew Santana sang any version of “She’s Not There”. No one’s thought of except the Zombies with that song.
Now let’s talk about ‘Til There Was You, Money, Chains,
I was thinking the same thing. The Zombies’ version is much more famous.
However you need to listen to the Santana version, it’s probably one of his most underrated recordings. If any cover deserved to overshadow the original, this should have been the one.
There is a 1983 version by Ellen Shipley called “He’s Not There”.
Blondie’s The Tide is High is another song I didn’t realise until quite recently was a cover.
The instrumental half of “Black Magic Woman” is “Gypsy Queen”, originally by Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo. His work is well worth checking into.