JCC Cover songs you thought were the "real" songs.

What are some covers you heard that you originally thought were the original version of the songs? For me, the two that immediately come to mind are Aerosmith's "Come Together" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

 

Once upon a time in my youth I thought "All Along the Watchtower" was a Hendrix original.

 

Girls Just Wanna to Have Fun

 

Also, I discovered the Beatles before I discovered RnB.

 

Oh, and....

 

19 years before The Bangles:

 

I always thought of this as a Hendrix song for quite some time. But, Dylan himself ever did to an extent.

Otherwise, two Prince songs - Manic Monday and Nothing Compares. I had no idea they were his.

 

Well he didn't release either of them prior to them becoming hits, though Nothing Compares was released before O'Connor's version by another band.

 

Oh man, Quiet Riot just got even lamer. Had no clue that was a cover.

For me, I never knew the entire Led Zep catalog were covers of various other artists.

 

It's good, sure, but I still prefer Seal's version.

 

Technically a folk song I guess. Also the Beach Boys' cover version is better, ****ing come at me.

Edit: Realized we're posting the originals, not the covers. Sure, fine.

 

In university I took a 20th century music course where I discovered a lot of the original versions of songs. Hound Dog and Shake, Rattle, and Roll come to mind.

 

Many early Stones songs: "Time Is On My Side", "Little Red Rooster", "It's All Over Now", et cetera. "The Last Time" was stolen from an old gospel song. Well, pretty much everything they did was stolen from either old gospel songs or rhythm and blues tunes, which explains The Stones' generous, sportive attitude many years later in the plagiarism case against The Verve. (That was sarcasm.)

Classic songs such as "Without You" by Harry Nilsson, "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix.

Many songs from my childhood/early teens: "Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison, "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Guns N' Roses, "Love Of The Common People" by Paul Young.

 

He literally says "this is a David Bowie song" during the unplugged performance.

 

I never knew until recently that the Blondie version of The Tide is High is a cover version of this:

 

It took me some time to realize that "Working My Way Back to You" wasn't a Spinners original, likewise Ray Charles's rendition of "Night and Day."

 

Every hit by Three Dog Night.

 

3 of those 4 I didn't know were covers until now. Pretty obvious the one I did know.

 

Turns out this was a Hal David-Burt Bacharach song from way back when: