Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

[Stumpy Pepys]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Various Artist wrote: Actually, the same goes for their Red, Red Wine.

Their version of Red Red Wine was lifted from Tony Tribe's cover. Which is far better.

[Sam]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

I'd now be adding 'Red Red Wine' to my old Covers You Didn't Know Were Covers thread, if I could be bothered searching for it.

As for this thread, I think having been introduced to Prince's 'Kiss' via the Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones version counts.

[Wouter D]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Various Artist wrote: I think UB40's version of (I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You – as I believe they retitled it – was really good. They changed it up a lot musically (and I don't mean just put a lite-reggae backing on it, gave it some proper oomph) and it was a deserved UK number one in 1993.
I'm not saying it was superior to Elvis, just... different.

Oh, I agree that the cover was actually quite good. It's still the "wrong version" to me, since the Elvis one is better. But I'm not at all unhappy that the UB40 cover exists.

[3 Colours Red]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Sam wrote: As for this thread, I think having been introduced to Prince's 'Kiss' via the Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones version counts.

Same here - it's just I didn't include it in my list as I actually prefer the cover. It just makes the original sound a bit thin and insubstantial to my ears.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

''All Along The Watchtower'' - XTC anyone?

[ad hoc]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

All Along The Watchtower is a good call, (though i never knew until now that XTC did it), but the Hendrix version.

There're a lot of soul/reggae classics that got reworked and found a new audience. As much as it grates to type that Simply Red had any influence on me, I did hear their version of Money's Too Tight To Mention before the "real" one (and I still like both, to be honest). I can no longer remember if the first version of Inner City Blues I ever heard was Gil Scott Heron's or Working Week's (Remember Working Week? I loved that album). It was years later that I discovered it was actually a Marvin Gaye song

[Haddock]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

I think the first version I heard of Strange Fruit was the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover. I remember something along the lines of it being described by an NME reviewer as sounding as if Siouxsie was were singing about a surprisingly large orange.

[evilC]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Pretty much everything ever covered by This Mortal Coil.

The seemingly hard-wired aversion I had to anything I perceived as 'long-haired', in my youth, precluded me from investigating everything from The Doors to Frank Zappa, let alone anything less well-known.However, This Mortal Coil took those raw nuggets and polished them into iridescent gems (for the teenage semi-goth me, at least!) When I started retroacively seeking out the originals, I quickly saw the parallels with certain elements of The Beach Boys (one of my first childhood musical loves) and so that helped soften my stance ...a little!

I find cover versions a really problematic thing, though. On the one hand, they *can* act as gateways to music you'd never normally hear, as mentioned above. But on the other, they are the opposite of creativity - the staple of 'the pub band' - causing people to suppress their own inherent creativity, in order to simply bask in a tiny amount of perceived reflected glory. ...Or they're loving tributes! Take your pick! :-)

So... I'd always prefer to hear original songs (particularly from new, young bands) but, at the same time, I *do* worship This Mortal Coil.

[nmrfox]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Paul Young - Love of the Common People, Wherever I Lay My Hat etc etc..

Though a musically contemptible friend of mine who really liked him took some convincing that the dreadful version of Love Will Tear Us Apart on No Parlez wasn't his own song...

[Sean of the Shed]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Toploader - Dancing In The Moonlight
This got to be very annoying for a very long time, and for reasons I can't explain I always used to associate it with Jamie Oliver's early cookery programmes where everything was "pukka" and he used to "waz" olive oil over his food.
Thanks to Chris Morris, though, I now associate with four inept suicide bombers travelling to the London Marathon in a delivery van.

[Jah Womble]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

nmrfox - was your buddy P J Proby by any chance? He used to play LWTUA on some of his revival tours - and according to the NME sometimes introduced it as 'a Paul Young song'.

MiserableOldGit wrote: How about Cocteau Twins with Song To The Siren and This Mortal Coil with Another Day? Not exactly the wrong people (Tim Buckley and Roy Harper respectively), but very different.

Both were by This Mortal Coil, as evilC's post also suggests. (The only Cocteau Twins cover of which I can think offhand is Frosty the Snowman. I can't believe there'd be a soul alive who would even have heard that version first, let alone thought it was an original.)

[Wouter D]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Vicarious Thrillseeker wrote: ''All Along The Watchtower'' - XTC anyone?

The U2 version for me. Definitely fits in here.

[Various Artist]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Jah Womble wrote:

How about Cocteau Twins with Song To The Siren and This Mortal Coil with Another Day? Not exactly the wrong people (Tim Buckley and Roy Harper respectively), but very different.

Both were by This Mortal Coil, as evilC's post also suggests. (The only Cocteau Twins cover of which I can think offhand is Frosty the Snowman. I can't believe there'd be a soul alive who would even have heard that version first, let alone thought it was an original.)

Dammit, I was really intrigued by the notion that there's a Cocteau Twins take on Song To The Siren out there somewhere. Ah well.

[evilC]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Well, it kind of *is*, since it's the three Cocteaus performing it, but only because they were drafted in by (label boss) Ivo Watts-Russell to perform in his pet project.

Here's the video.- Prepare for 'The Feels' (as the kids these days say, or so I'm led to believe.)

[Crystal Staples]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

"Don’t Let the sun go down on me" – I first knew it as a live version which was a 90s number one with George Michael singing the first verse. When I hear the original I still expect “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Elton John” on Elton’s own recording.

[Ray de Galles]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Someone once complained to me about the "lame cover" of Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Higher Ground' that was being played in a club. Yep, it was Steve Wonder's original.

[Ray de Galles]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

A slightly differing thing, another friend once berated me "because you and your precious Manic Street Preachers don't think the Beatles are all that but they still covered 'Rock & Roll Music'!"

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

evilC wrote: Pretty much everything ever covered by This Mortal Coil.

So... I'd always prefer to hear original songs (particularly from new, young bands) but, at the same time, I *do* worship This Mortal Coil.

Apologies for jumping over your post, Clive, but something at work made me laugh this morning, and it's a word association that brings me here. It's from one of my team in Mogadishu - and it's fairly dark humour - but here is the email:

"This is to inform you that mortal shell attacks have been raided to near villa somalia, and explosions have been heard around mogadishu, I have no further details on this , so I have to leave earlier from the office I may afraid that the streets will be closed due this attacks, in case you may need to contact me on the weekly updates will let you know when I reach to home."

Mortar/mortal. I think it works better in the amended version. Carry on....

[MiserableOldGit]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Jah Womble wrote: Both were by This Mortal Coil, as evilC's post also suggests.

I can't think why I said Cocteau Twins, as I knew it was This Mortal Coil and used to have the album it was on. This was the first time I'd ever heard Another Day, which I thought was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. I think I noticed it was by Roy Harper, but I'd only ever heard of him through Song Of The Ages, which was on a Harvest sampler. Quite a while afterwards I was watching a Kate Bush TV special, during which she sang a duet with Peter Gabriel which was beautiful yet quite heart breaking. It was really nagging me that I felt I'd heard the song before, but couldn't quite place it. Then it was the line 'she offers me Tibetan tea, on a flower tray', which somehow clicked, even though Liz Fraser's lyrics are barely discernible. After that I had to investigate the original and now when I'm in my car, I often listen to the three tracks back to back. I think it's difficult to choose a favourite out of them, but I really wish that a pure recording existed of the TV show version, where Peter Gabriel's crescendo is over recorded.

Edit: just watched it again and it's not all that bad. Perhaps the over-recording was all my doing when I ripped it off using Audio Recorder For Free :-)

This Mortal Coil: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6vW2uWsro0
Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvt5YnocRp8
Roy Harper's original: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqgWW2jEOIo

[Jah Womble]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Well, as evilC says, TMC's Song to the Siren is 'effectively' the Cocteau Twins, so I shouldn't berate yourself too hard. On the other hand, the musicians on Another Day are Martin McCarrick and Gini Ball - but when Liz's voice kicks in, it kind of becomes hers...

[Wouter D]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

Ray de Galles wrote: Someone once complained to me about the "lame cover" of Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Higher Ground' that was being played in a club. Yep, it was Steve Wonder's original.

Oh, I had that happen in a slightly more tactful manner, when playing Kraftwerk's Computerwelt album in a group, and somebody inquired what an unusual Coldplay cover that one track was.

[caja-dglh]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

oof. I would probably walk away if that happened.

[MiserableOldGit]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

I must admit that I wasn't all that keen on much of It'll End In Tears, but it's only now that I've realised it contains a track written by Colin Newman of Wire (one of my favourite bands). I don't know how I missed that.

[SouthdownRebel]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

3 Colours Red wrote: Bananarama - Help

Also Bananarama's Venus, which was originally by The Shocking Blue, a fact I discovered when checking their original version of Love Buzz, which was covered by Nirvana on their first album. So...Nirvana to Bananarama in one easy hop.

[Sam]

Hearing classics for the first time - by the wrong people

3 Colours Red wrote:

As for this thread, I think having been introduced to Prince's 'Kiss' via the Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones version counts.

Same here - it's just I didn't include it in my list as I actually prefer the cover. It just makes the original sound a bit thin and insubstantial to my ears.

Good grief.