Famous Interpreters Who Were Famously Interpreted: Nilsson Types

lol xp how about the byrds -- best known for their dylan covers, but "eight miles high" has been covered a lot over the years.

none of those covers are more famous than the Byrds' tho

altho maybe there's some Gene Clark/Tom Petty angle here with the "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" cover

if we counted every "this person covered one standard and a lot of people covered one of their hits" most singer/songwriters would count

sure

Clark is arguably most famous for covering Dylan songs in the Byrds tho

just in case anyone's getting lost in the semantics, let's tighten the concept to "made someone else's song famous and wrote a song someone else made famous"

so no "well there are a lot of fans of modern music who wouldn't know this was a hit 30 years ago" jive

Hmm... Bobby Darin famously interpreted many songs such as "Mack the Knife", "La Mer (Beyond the Sea)" and Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter" - his "I'll Be There" was a top 20 UK hit and a #1 in Canada for Gerry and the Pacemakers, also Tim Hardin reached the top 50 with a recording of his "Simple Song of Freedom".

Yeah, I was just about to mention Hardin. Think he belongs here for sure -- other people hit with "If I Were A Carpenter" and "Reason to Believe," but he only ever hit the U.S. charts with that Darin cover.

Hmm, buncha people had Springsteen hits. Pointer Sisters did "Fire," Manfred Mann, of course. And Bruce's live cover of "Jersey Girl" is better known than the Waits original.

Nilsson did this more than once, btw. It was a long time before I learned that "Without You" was originally by Badfinger.

Badfinger counts too because their biggest hit is Come and Get It (McCartney) and Nillson really made Without You famous.

If we're counting folk songs, Simon & Garfunkel made Scarborough Fair famous and Simon wrote Red Rubber Ball that was a hit for The Cyrkle.

Maybe an obvious one... but Jagger/Richards. Marianne Faithfull's version of As Tears Go By came out in '64, Stones' version in '65. Tons of songs are best-known by the Stones versions - for sure "It's All Over Now" (Bobby Womack/The Valentinos) would fit.

forgot about "as tears go by"! good catch

what did Marianne Faithfull write

i was referring to it being a good catch re: a song by jagger/richards someone else made famous, if that's why you're asking

if the criteria is 'ppl who had a hit w/ a cover and also had other ppl hit w/ a cover of a song they wrote' that's a long as fuck list, if it's 'ppl who's biggest hit by far as a performer was a cover and whose biggest hit by far as a songwriter came via someone else's cover (w/ the cover dwarfing the original's success)' that's a much shorter list, esp if you add the caveat that both hits had to be genuinely big hits. nilsson obv w/o question (w/ some wiggle room for biggest hit even), badfinger very possibly (though you could argue that 'come and get it' isn't their biggest hit), neil diamond not really.

it's the former, and i don't think it's actually that long-as-fuck a list

well this is a really anal thread then huh

oh don't be sour grapes over "proud mary"

People we've mentioned so far who wrote a song someone else made famous and made someone else's song famous:

Nilsson ("Everybody's Talkin'"/"One")
Neil Diamond ("You Don't Bring Me Flowers Any More"/"I'm A Believer")
Willie Nelson ("Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain"/"Crazy")
Lennon/McCartney (pick one/"I Wanna Be You Man")
Ian Hunter ("All The Young Dudes"/"Ships")
*Mel Torme (actually what was this guy's hit that wasn't already a standard? before my time/"The Christmas Song")
*Mike Nesmith (actually did he sing lead on any monkees hit he didn't write?/"Different Drum")
Bobby Darin (a Hardin Cover/a song Hardin covered)
Tim Hardin (a Darin cover/a song Darin covered)
Springsteen ("Jersey Girl"/"Blinded By The Light")
Paul Simon ("Scarborough Fair"/"Red Rubber Ball")
Jagger/Richards ("It's All Over Now"/"As Tears Go by")

yeah if you add 'made the song famous' it's not that long i guess, otherwise you're just talking about songwriters who were or became performers and then eventually had a hit w/ someone else's song. this doesn't seem as common as it used to be - ppl don't interpret songs and ppl don't give songs away - and the songwriter -> performer path in country isn't as firm as it was (though it still exists in r&b).

Robert Wyatt's "Shipbuilding" for Costello maybe? Though Costello's version came afterward.

wyatt's went top 40 before costello had released it, i'd say it counts

yeah nesmith as far as i can tell wrote the monkees hits he sang (and a surprising number he didn't sing as well eg. 'mary, mary', 'daily, nightly'). chill bro.

*Mike Nesmith (actually did he sing lead on any monkees hit he didn't write?/"Different Drum")
Shit, I dunno?

xpost

'ppl who had a hit w/ a cover and also had other ppl hit w/ a cover of a song they wrote'

don't get how Proud Mary doesn't qualify then?

CCR hit #2 with "Proud Mary" a few years later, Ike & Tina hit #4 with a cover. Ike & Tina did not make "Proud Mary" famous.

yeah by this criteria it counts, i think the songs that were clearly written for someone else and then the songwriter went 'o, since it hit i guess i'll do my own version as well' are somewhat different than yr trad covers.

but you never said that anywhere is the thing

yeah i can't remember who it was (my gut tells me springsteen) but someone got fogerty to perform ccr live again by telling him if he didn't ppl were gonna start thinking of 'proud mary' as a tina turner song.

just in case anyone's getting lost in the semantics, let's tighten the concept to "made someone else's song famous and wrote a song someone else made famous"

― da croupier, Monday, October 22, 2012 6:19 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf that original post does bounce between 'made famous' and merely 'had a hit w/ a cover'. ie the beatles didn't make any of their covers famous (in america at least).

sorry guess I'll go start a "Are there any other singer/songwriters who had a degree of success singing songs by others and having their songs sung by others...but one of the songs involved was already famous initially" thread

i apologize if i was vague in my initial post but i didn't mean to leave the door open to Elton's "Lucy IN The Sky" hits.

haha yeah do what you gotta do to keep him out. I've only heard of about 1/2 of these famous songs, so the criteria w/r/t fame seemed pretty loose overall.

i feel your pain

B.J. Thomas first recorded "Here You Come Again" by Mann/Weil, but Dolly Parton made it a hit. Whitney's version of "I Will Always Love You" is more famous worldwide than Parton's own version.

Gene Pitney aproaches balls' criteria. His biggest hits were by others, but he only wrote the second or third biggest hits for The Crystals and Ricky Nelson.

Jackie De Shannon's biggest hit was by Bacharach / David "What the World Needs Now" (is it an interpretation if she recorded it first?), and she co-wrote "Bette Davis Eyes", Kim Carnes biggest hit.

now that da croupier has tightened up the rules, my brain has given up.

thought bowie was a candidate but 'sorrow' wasn't a hit in the us (and while it was a hit in the uk so was the original). there are album cuts that are covers and more well known than the original but i don't really think you can call 'it's not easy' a hit.

i don't know why you'd be bothered by the tightening, zachary (which honestly i meant from the get go) - pitney and de shannon still fit the bill!

whitney's version is the bigger hit but it was already a hit before that (dolly even revived it apropos of nothing in the best little whorehouse in texas). thought bobbie gentry might qualify but she actually had a pretty big hit w/ 'fancy' if nowhere near as huge as reba did.

yeah my second criteria was tighter than croup's, those totally fit.

So I guess Lowe's "Switchboard Susan" cover is deemed "not famous enough"? (I'll buy that, if so; just trying to keep score.)

yeah sorry i meant to mention that - "some airplay in detroit" is a little too low a bar, "shipbuilding" at least was a top 40 hit (rough trade records' first!)

kinda weird that 'shipbuilding' is the best cover of costello candidate by far cuz that is one dude who really has worked to be on this thread

Smokey Robinson wrote tons of hits for other Motown artists of course, and he also had a hit with Holland, Dozier, Holland's "Mickey's Monkey".

Kirsty MacColl - her biggest hit Billy Bragg's "A New England" ; wrote Tracy Ullman's biggest hit "They Don't Know About Us"

wondering if there's enough incidences of 'ppl scoring a hit w/ a cover while somewhat simultaneously someone is scoring a hit w/ a cover of them' or if that's just hall & oates. beatles and stones probably fit here too.

John Phillips might count for Dedicated to the One I Love and Kokomo. Although the original was already famous, and I think there was even a thread here about which one you think of first.

updated thread-cop list, with torme removed until someone mentions which song mel torme didn't write mel torme made famous. Nesmith we'll keep for "Hangin' Round" and overall monkeehood.

Chris Brown ("With You"/"Disturbia")
Elvis Costello ("What's So Funny Bout Peace Love & Understanding"/"Girls Talk")
Bobby Darin (a Hardin Cover/a song Hardin covered)
Cathy Dennis ("Touch Me"/"Can't Get You Out Of My Head")
Jackie DeShannon ("What The World Needs Now"/"Bette Davis Eyes")
Neil Diamond ("You Don't Bring Me Flowers Any More"/"I'm A Believer")
Hall & Oates ("Family Man"/"Electric Blue")
Tim Hardin (a Darin cover/a song Darin covered)
Ian Hunter ("All The Young Dudes"/"Ships")
Jagger/Richards ("It's All Over Now"/"As Tears Go By")
Kirsty MacColl ("A New England"/"They Don't Care About Us")
Lennon/McCartney (pick one/"I Wanna Be Your Man")
Kenny Loggings ("Danger Zone"/"A Love Song")
Henry Mancini ("Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet"/"Moon River"
Willie Nelson ("Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain"/"Crazy")
Mike Nesmith ("Hangin' Round"/"Different Drum")
Nilsson ("Everybody's Talkin'"/"One")
Gene Pitney ("The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"/"He's A Rebel")
Smokey Robinson ("Mickey's Monkey"/pick one)
Paul Simon ("Scarborough Fair"/"Red Rubber Ball")
Bruce Springsteen ("Jersey Girl"/"Blinded By The Light")
Warren Zevon ("A Certain Girl"/"Poor Poor Pitiful Me")

some acknowledgements: the original "Family Man" diiiiid go top 30 in canada, based on radio play maccoll's "they don't care about us" probably would have made the chart if not for a strike that kept the physical single from being released(!), Warren hitting #57 doesn't exactly make an Ernie K-Doe song famous, the originals of the mancini-related covers were all in hit movies (suggesting they were already famous) but it's still pretty neat,

...and while the original "touch me" single is appreciated enough in hindsight to top the wikipedia page for the song (it was in nightmare on elm street 2!) it only hit like #70 on the r&b chart

Scritti Politti "She's A Woman" / Madness "The "Sweetest Girl"

You should add in Badfinger (or Ham/Evans) for "Come and Get It" / "Without You"

woops, forgot about that one, sorry!

those poor guys can never get a break