Among other excellent observations, Vague grouses:
Driving a passel of girls to the bar one night, I was called upon to "play something funky." To this day, I remain convinced the girl in question just didn't know what "funky" meant. Upon choosing "Higher Ground," I was met, incredibly, with "Oh! I didn't know there was a jazz version of that Red Hot Chili Peppers song!"Agreed, of course, this is all a tad appalling. It's worth noting, too, that the Chili Peppers have given the same treatment to the Ohio Players' "Love Roller Coaster."I remember being as appalled then as I had been in college when I read in the University paper that U2 had covered "that Hendrix song," in reference to "All Along the Watchtower."
But isn't there some difference in degree between a Chili Peppers/Stevie mistake, which reflects ignorance of your musical roots, and a Hendrix/Dylan mistake, which might reflect who has the definitive version of the song? No one is faulted for calling "The Lady is a Tramp" a Sinatra song. Likewise, "Me & Bobby McGee" will always be associated with Janis Joplin first, Kris Kristofferson second; "Cocaine" with Eric Clapton before J.J. Cale. This doesn't always happen -- Clapton got "Cocaine" but Bob Marley held onto "I shot the Sheriff," and Carl Perkins still has "Blue Suede Shoes" even after Elvis took a stab at it. But I think Dylan lost "Watchtower" to Hendrix, although in consolation he still has the definitive "Mr. Tambourine Man."
Ooh, I love the musical nitpicking.
This all got me going in another direction: songs of the same name that are completely different. Example: There are three original songs called "Stupid Girl," by the Stones, Neil Young, and (cough) Garbage. AC/DC and Led Zeppelin have songs with slightly different titles, but both working off of the central premise of being shook all night long. (And yes, Zeppelin's was lifted from Willie Dixon.) I've been wanting to compile a mix tape of such musical oddities but I can't think of any other examples. Anybody got any?
Posted by FLOG at October 19, 2005 1:56 PMOoh, I always wanted to make such a tape, too. Of course now all of my examples have flown out of my head. Maybe I'll be back with more in a later drunken blog-commenting binge. That's kinda my style.
Posted by: vague at October 19, 2005 7:40 PMAccording to All Music, there's no less than 5 billion songs out there with the word "crying" in the title. Take, for example:
Cryin' - Aerosmith
The Crying Game - Boy George/Dave Berry
Crying - Bjork
I think every band that has ever existed has at least one song with this word in the title. Fun fact: the f-word turns up about a hundred matches.
Posted by: Brandon at October 20, 2005 2:30 PMYeah, but . . . I'm looking for more than just one word here. I want songs with an identical title. AC/DC & Zeppelin are a borderline case but those titles share three key words, rather than one. Sure, I can scare up 87 trillion songs with "love" in the title, but that's not what I'm after.
Posted by: FLOG at October 20, 2005 2:35 PM