Cover versions that were covers of covers

[Stumpy Pepys]

Red Red Wine, UB40
A cover of Tony Tribe's cover of Neil Diamond

Different Drum, The Lemonheads
A cover of the Stone Poneys' cover of Mike Nesmith.

[salt n shake]

Atomic Kitten's version of The Tide is High, which every good schoolboy knows is a cover of Blondie, which is a cover of The Paragons.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I Think We're Alone Now, Girls Aloud
A cover of Tiffany's cover of Tommy James and the Shondels

And taking things further:

You've Got The Love, Florence and The Machine
A cover of The Source's mash up of Candi Staton's You've Got The Love and Jamie Principle's Your Love

Freak Like Me, Sugababes
A cover of a bootleg mash up of Freak Like Me by Adina Howard and Are Friends Electric by Gary Numan and Tubeway Army

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Lethal Bizzle's 'Police on my Back' was a cover/sample of The Clash, which was a cover of The Equals.

[3 Colours Red]

Trent Reznor was in a new wave band called Option 30 who recorded a cover of After The Fire's version of Der Kommissar - you can tell that because it's in English... unlike Falco's original, natch.

[elguapo4]

Crazy horse album track "I don't want to talk about it " taken to the charts by Rod Stewart and Everything but the girl

[Stumpy Pepys]

Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah was really a cover of John Cale's.

[G-Man]

There are loads. A few of them:


"Twist And Shout": Beatles covered Isley Brothers covered The Top Notes

"Hound Dog": Elvis covered Freddie Bell & the Bellboys covered Big Big Mama Thornton

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood": Santa Esmeralda covered (sort of) The Animals covered Nina Simone

"Try A Little Tenderness": Otis Redding covering Sam Cooke covering Bing Crosby

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight": Tight Fit covering The Tokens stealing from The Weavers stealing from Solomon Linda

"Dedicated To The One I Love": The Mamas & the Papas covering The Shirelles covering The “5” Royales

"You Can Leave Your Hat On": Tom Jones covering Joe Cocker covering Randy Newman

"Torn": Natalie Imbruglia covering Ednaswap covering Lis Sörensen*

"Without You": Mariah Carey coverring Nilsson covering Badfinger

"Shoop Shoop Song": Cher covering Betty Everett covering Merry Clayton

"This Ole House": Shakin’ Stevens covering Rosemary Clooney covering Stuart Hamblen

"Angel Of The Morning": Juice Newton covering Merrilee Rush covering Evie Sands

"Can't Help Falling In Love": UB40 (and loads others) covering Elvis covering Monsieur Ferrnand**

"There's A Kind Of Hush": Carpenters covering Herman's Hermits covering The New Vaudeville Band

"Blue Moon": The Marcels covering Elvis covering a while lot of crooners covering Glen Gray & his Casa Loma Orchestra

"Dancing In The Moonlight": Toploader covering King Harvest covering Buffalongo

"Crying In The Chapel": Elvis Presley covering The Orioles covering Darrell Glenn

"Whole Lotta Shaking Going On": Jerry Lee Lewis covering Big Maybelle covering Roy Hall***


* Ednasap wrote it, Sörensen recorded it first. I think Imbruglia actually covered Trine Rein's version, so we have a four-stage cover here.

** Monsieur Fernand's 1902 recording was the first of the 18th-century love song Plaisir d’amour.

*** That's the recording sequence. Lewis actually covered the Roy Hall rockabilly original. So that doesn't really belong here, does it?

[Snake Plissken]

Always on My Mind - Ver Shoppies covering Elvis covering BJ Thomas.

[Snake Plissken]

Every version of Unchained Melody post The Righteous Brothers would probably count here.

Same with anyone doing Hendrix version of All Along The Watchtower.

[Jah Womble]

P J Proby used to describe Love Will Tear Us Apart as 'a Paul Young song' when performing said Joy Division classic live...

[Snake Plissken]

I’m going to be impressively vague here but someone (Adam Lambert?) recently did a slow, choral version of “With or Without You” which was a direct cover of the Scala Choir / Kolacny Brothers version.

[Sits]

Everybody's Talkin' - The Beautiful South (and many others) covering Nilsson covering Fred Neil.

[G-Man]

Always on My Mind - Ver Shoppies covering Elvis covering BJ Thomas.

If Elvis borrowed from BJ Thomas (whose version I don't know), then BJ Thomas covered Brenda Lee, who recorded it first.

BJ Thomas perhas picked up "Always On My MInd" from his friend Mark James, who co-wrote it. BJ also nearly recorded James' "Suspicious Minds", but he didn't. So...

"Suspicious Minds": Fine Young Cannibals covering Elvis covering Mark James

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Lonnie Donegan changed the words in his version of Rock Island Line thus:

Donegan embellished Lead Belly's earlier lyrics with an account of how the locomotive engineer fooled a toll-collector by misrepresenting his load of pig-iron as livestock, which was not chargeable, but this is based on his misunderstanding of the railroad phrase “in the hole” (meaning in the siding); the original meaning was merely that the engineer avoided a wait in the siding because trains carrying livestock were given priority.

...which then became the standard, so subsequent versions were covering the cover rather than the original*. Johnny Cash added more words but I don't know whether these took hold in later covers.

*I know the limitations of this description - I mean the Lead Belly recorded versions.

[G-Man]

Another one I was reminded of as I was catching up with old Chart Music episodes today:

"Some Guys Have All The Luck": Rod Stewart covering Robert Palmer covering The Persuaders.


I suppose the catalogue of songwriters of pop standards like Burt Bacharach/Hal David, Jimmy Webb and the Brill Building gang would produce rich pickings for this thread. Bacharach/David alone have a good few:

"(They Long To Be) Close To You": Gwen Guthrie covering Carpenters covering Richard Chamberlain
"I’ll Never Fall In Love Again": Elvis Costello covering Dionne Warwick covering Jerry Orbach & Jill O'Hara
"Always Something There To Remind Me": Naked Eyes covering Sandie Shaw covering Lou Johnson
"A House Is Not A Home": Luther Vandross covering Dionne Warwick covering Brook Benton
"One Less Bell To Answer": Barbra Streisand* covering The 5th Dimension covering Keely Smith

* Streisand does so in a superb medley with "A House Is Not A Home". Her phrasing there is more Keely Smith than Marilyn McCoo, but seeing as the album it's from contains mostly covers of recent songs, the cover was certainly inspired by The 5th Dimension.

[Snake Plissken]

BJ Thomas wrote it in 1969, Brenda Lee recorded it in 1972. (I wiki'd before I posted, because I didn't know who did it before Elvis.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_on_My_Mind

"Always on My Mind" is a song by Johnny Christopher, Mark James, and Wayne Carson, recorded first by B.J. Thomas in 1969^[1], then Gwen McCrae (as "You Were Always on My Mind") and Brenda Lee in 1972. The song has been a crossover hit, charting in both the country and western and pop categories.

[Janik]

You've Got the Love - Florence Welch covers a The Source ft. Candi Staton song that was a cover of some soundtrack music sung by Staton.

[Gangster Octopus]

"Suspicious Minds": Fine Young Cannibals covering Elvis covering Mark James

Best version ever will sadly never be heard again: Gary Glitter And The Glitter Band. Apparently it was the only thing that they ever recorded together.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Best version ever will sadly never be heard again: Gary Glitter And The Glitter Band. Apparently it was the only thing that they ever recorded together.

It's on Spotify.

[G-Man]

BJ Thomas wrote it in 1969, Brenda Lee recorded it in 1972. (I wiki'd before I posted, because I didn't know who did it before Elvis.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_on_My_Mind

I've checked: BJ Thomas was indeed the first to record it, but his version was unreleased until 1990. Gwen McCrae and Brenda Lee released it within a couple of months of one another in 1972. Turns out McCrae's was the first version to be released (as a b-side), though Brenda Lee, having recorded it in 1971, might have been the earlier of the two to record it.

[Jah Womble]

January 1994: Mariah Carey proceeds to mangle Harry Nilsson's version of Badfinger's Without You. (Edit: As G-Man has mentioned in his list.)

March 2002: Gareth Gates murders the Righteous Brothers' take on the Todd Duncan original. ("So badly misread as to make the Robson & Jerome version sound definitive." The NME - referring to Gates, obviously.)

You've Got the Love - Florence Welch covers a The Source ft. Candi Staton song that was a cover of some soundtrack music sung by Staton.

...and how we wish she hadn't.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Every version of Unchained Melody post The Righteous Brothers would probably count here.

Same with anyone doing Hendrix version of All Along The Watchtower.

There were several earlier hit versions of Unchained Melody before the Righteous Brothers (including Jimmy Young's!) Production aside It wasn't so very different from them.

[3 Colours Red]

March 2002: Gareth Gates murders the Righteous Brothers' take on the Todd Duncan original. ("So badly misread as to make the Robson & Jerome version sound definitive." The NME - referring to Gates, obviously.)

Reminds me of one of the few sensible things Terry Christian has ever said:
"How can you kill* something that's already been murdered^?"

* Gates
^ R&J

[Bored Of Education]

Anyone covering "Louie Louie" is usually covering the Kingsmens' version which is covering Richard Berry's version which is, in itself, is based on "El Loco Cha Cha" by Ricky Rillera and the Rhythm Rockers which, in itself was based on "Amarren Al Loco" ("Tie Up That Madman") by Rosendo Ruiz Jr.

A similar standard, 'Wild Thing' is usually covering either Hendrix or the Troggs' versions of the Wild Ones' original.