did you ever have a favorite song growing up that you only discovered years later was not written by the band you thought but was actually a cover song ?
i know it happened to me numerous times growing up and with multiple genres of music. here are just a few examples.
KISS -
King Of The Night Time World (originally by
Hollywood Stars and co authored by Kim Fowley) /
Ace Frehley -
Back In The New York Groove (originally by
Hello) /
Joan Jett -
I Love Rock N Roll (originally by
The Arrows) /
Bay City Rollers -
Rock N Roll Love Letter (originally by
Tim Moore)
I Only Wanna Be With You (originally by
Dusty Springfield)
It's A Game (originally by
String Driven Thing)
The Carpenters -
Sing (originally by
Joe Raposo who wrote the song for Sesame Street) /
Blondie -
Hangin On The Telephone (originally by
The Nerves which featured a young Pete Case who went on to be the front man for
The Plimsouls) /
Soft Cell -
Tainted Love (originally by
Gloria Jones) /
Bow Wow Wow -
I Want Candy (originally by
The Strangeloves) /even when I got into punk rock later in my teens i was surprised to find out years later many of my favorite punk songs were not originals for example
The Dickies - Pretty Please Me (was originally written by
The Quick who themselves did a fantastic song called '
It Won't Be Long' which I had no idea was by
The Beatles) then there were
The Boys (UK) a punkpop band from the Britain who remain a favorite of mine to this day,the opening cut on their album was called
'Sick On You' and it wasn't until just recently i discovered that the song was in fact written four years earlier (1973) by a little known British band called
The Hollywood Stars (a sort of UK version of
The New York Dolls) and who
The Boys (UK) liked so much they covered another one of their tracks called '
Tumble With Me' and on the Boys second album 'Alternative Chartbusters' they did another song I loved I had no idea for years was a cover called Stop!Stop!Stop! originally by
The Hollies) and which I will share both versions of here for your comparison.I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite since for years I had no idea the Boys version was a cover,but suffice to say
The Hollies version not only still sounds amazing today,but is one of the only songs I can think of to ever hit the pop charts that features a banjo.a really sobering fact is that most of these songs were covered in a less than ten year radius of the original which just goes to show how oblivious one generation can be to the one that preceded them.thus I try not to be as judgmental when i hear a cover song I think is 'blasphemous'