Hits by songwriters better known for other people's songs

[Guy Rowland]

What a clumsy title I know. But you'll get the hang of it.

Waiting For A Star To Fall by Boy Meets Girl



A classic one hit wonder by Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill, allegedly inspired by Shannon seeing a falling star at a Whitney Houston concert. They wrote it for her but she turned it down. Not ones to bear a grudge, they went on to write this for her:



Get What You Give by The New Radicals



This is the favourite song of a dear friend of mine. But what happened to the New Radicals? They were in fact songwriter Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois. Gregg co-wrote Get What You Give with Rick Knowles. He solo wrote this huge and fabulous hit in the UK for the ex-singer of vapid boy band Westlife and by far the best thing he ever did:



It contains the immortal couplet "You really got me flyng tonight / You almost got us punched in a fight".

Incidentally, I only know Danielle Brisebois from this delightful cover of 60s classic, Gimme Little Sign



All these three sound very... summery, don't they?

What's Up by 4 Non Blondes



What a classic, and what a belter of a performance. And yet these two songs by songwriter Linda Perry are arguably even better known - and all three are completely different from one another. Major respect.





Kiss by Prince and the Revolution



Now alright, Prince isn't exactly obscure. His Kiss reached no 6 in the UK charts whereas the cover version by the unlikely but successful collaboration between Tom Jones and The Art Of Noise made it ONE PLACE HIGHER at no 5.



But for me his finest song - and the finest performance - was sung by someone else entirely. RIP Sinead.



Any other curiosities out there, folks?

[Lawrence]

Rufus Wainwright for “Hallelujah” maybe?
Aretha for “Respect”-Otis Redding wrote and recorded it.

[Guy Rowland]

Rufus Wainwright for “Hallelujah” maybe?
Aretha for “Respect”-Otis Redding wrote and recorded it.

How can I be 58 and not know Otis Redding wrote RESPECT?!

Hallelujah - good shout. It is one of those rare songs that has been covered by so many people I've lost all sight of what the "original" was, the one that made it big. Leonard Cohen I guess?

Seems that the 60s (maybe earlier too) it was much more common to have different versions of the same song... IIRC sometimes even charting at the same time. It was perhaps a hangover from music publishing - people wrote songs and other people recorded them. Somewhere around the 60s / 70s artists became more synonymous with writing their own songs (?)

[Lawrence]

Leonard Cohen wrote it and recorded it, yes. With all the money that song generated, it’s hard to understand how his management stole so much money from him that he had to go back on the road at the end of his life to recoup.

Whitney Houston recorded Dolly Parton‘s. “I will always Love You.” and had a much bigger hit.

[Guy Rowland]

Ooh, that's another great category with I Will Always Love You - songs you never knew were covers.

Soft Cell - Tainted Love



It was decades later when I learned this was a cover. Written by Ed Cobb, it was originally sung by Gloria Jones in 1964



Natalie Imbruglia - Torn



This is a simply tremendous song. It was originally recorded in Danish by Lis Sørensen



Then the writers Scott Cutler and Anne Preven's American did their own gnarlier English language version via their band Ednaswap



The Civil Wars - Tell Mama

This admittedly wasn't a big hit but it is absolutely exquisite album track on their acrimonious break up album:



It was only last year I stumbled across the original by Etta James no less. It really messed with my head - I initially didn't recognise it at all. It was only when I eventually noticed the lyrics in the chorus were the same and thought.... no, it can't be....

[Guy Rowland]

Oh and last couplet for now. This one is pretty obscure, but similarly I knew the song as a something gorgeous and reflective

Superhumanoids - March Of The Pigs



I love that so much, so beautiful. And, somehow, this is the original by Nine Inch Nails:

[Piet De Ridder]

Harry Nilsson fits this thread perfectly. Widely admired songwriter himself, Nilsson scored big — massively, even — with songs by writers who were acclaimed artists in their own right, on two occasions: “Without You” was written by Pete Ham & Tom Evans (of the Welsh band-mismanaged-into-tragedy Badfinger) and “Everybody’s Talkin’” (famously used in the 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy”) is a song by the folk singer-songwriter Fred Neil.

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[Lawrence]

Harry Nilsson fits this thread perfectly. Widely admired songwriter himself, Nilsson scored big — massively, even — with songs by writers who were acclaimed artists in their own right, on two occasions: “Without You” was written by Pete Ham & Tom Evans (of the Welsh band-mismanaged-into-tragedy Badfinger) and “Everybody’s Talkin’” (famously used in the 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy”) is a song by the folk singer-songwriter Fred Neil.

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I knew the two principals in Badfinger had committed suicide (tragedy indeed) but had no idea they had written that huge hit for Nilsson. Fred Neil is a new name to me-he hit my nostalgia bone with “Everybody’s Talkin’. Every time I hear it I go back to that time.

[Lawrence]

Guy-I knew about Tainted Love-I like the cover WAY better. Did not know about Torn but still think of it as a great song and….modern…somehow, even after all this time. The original is nice.

Peter, Paul and Mary made Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” theirs, as they did with John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.”

[Piet De Ridder]

Talking about Dylan covers, and, alas, some more tragedy: a mildly unusual Dylan cover is BoomBox’s infectuous “Who Killed Davey Moore?”, a song Dylan wrote in 1963 after Moore — and this is where Tragedy Part One enters —, a promising young boxer, suffered severe brain damage after being knocked out in a fight against Sugar Ramos. He went into a coma and died a few days later.

From Wikipedia: "Following Moore's death, the morality of boxing was debated by politicians and religious leaders alike. The song "Davey Moore" by folk singer Phil Ochs, who described himself as a "singing journalist," offered a harsh criticism of the sport and those affiliated with it. However, Dylan's song delivered a more indirect message and a message that transcended the arena of boxing to include the enveloping society."

“Who Killed Davey Moore?” never made it onto any of Dylan's official albums of the era — it was first released on one of the ‘Bootleg Series’ that appeared in the early 90’s — but he performed it frequently live throughout the 60’s.

Slightly bizarre twist to all of this: there are in fact two Davey Moore’s, both of them boxers, and the second Davey Moore was also a most promising young pugilist whose life was cut short, in this case — Tragedy Part Two — the result of an accident while he was working on his car.

And not only were there two Davey Moore’s, there are also two BoomBoxes. One is an Ukranian band that has got nothing whatsoever to do with any of this, the other is a duo (Zion Godcheaux & Russ Randolph) from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, whose debut album ‘Visions Of Backbeat’ — “a heady brew of psychedelic, beat-infused, funky house music that is nearly impossible not to dance to” it was described as in The Examiner — includes “Who Killed Davey Moore?”

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[Lawrence]

Quite the collection of oddities there.

Dylan himself boxes for exercise (or did until recently.). He also wrote a song about Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, who was convicted of murder and eventually exonerated, partially due to the efforts Dylan made to raise consciousness about it.

On a personal note, I’ve always been interested in boxing. I recognize it to be a terrible and brutal sport but being a longtime observer I’m sort of addicted. I have a client who was a top10 boxer in the late 80’s and is now somewhat of a rapper. During a sparring session, he was mistakenly hit in the eye by his sparring partner and eventually lost sight in that eye, effectively ending his career. Now he’s a trainer of young fighters and also a high end fitness trainer.

I’ve never boxed. My son fought in the Golden Gloves, which is amateur boxing here in the States at a pretty high level. He went through some very intense training.

[Piet De Ridder]

Not sure if DEVO belongs in this thread, but I'll risk it. Widely considered one of the all time great covers (and I agree): DEVO's "Satisfaction (I can't get me no)" is a million miles removed from the original — as a good cover should be, I feel — and it was not without trepidation that DEVO went to seek Jagger's approval for the track's release. (Jagger loved it.)



Produced by Brian Eno (though the band and Eno didn't see eye to eye on a number of things during the recording of the album, resulting in Eno stepping back and Bowie stepping in to add a few touches during the final mix).

Bowie, that brings us back to ... boxing: to get in shape for his '83 tour, Bowie took up boxing. Here's a nice photograph from those days:



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[Lawrence]

Re Bowie and boxing-that one I never would have guessed!

[progger]

Very cool topic, Guy.

Speaking of Bowie... he supposedly liked Nirvana's version of his "Man Who Sold the World" song that hey "gave" it to Kurt. "It's yours now," or something like that.

[Ashermusic]

Bobby Darin wrote "Simple Song Of Freedom" and it was Tim Hardin's only chart hit.

And Tim wrote "If I Were A Carpenter" which was hit for Bobby Darin.

[Guy Rowland]

Bobby Darin wrote "Simple Song Of Freedom" and it was Tim Hardin's only chart hit.

And Tim wrote "If I Were A Carpenter" which was hit for Bobby Darin.

That's very cute!