Less famous covers that you knew before the more famous originals

Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Dear Prudence", "Helter Skelter"

I actually heard their version of "All Tomorrow's Parties" before the Velvets'. It's pretty obscure but a local campus radio station played it in the early 90s when I was taping songs off the radio.

Along with 'Dear Prudence', there's probably several songs I first discovered via cover versions on 120 Minutes (literally my only access to non-top 40 music during several teenage years spent in the middle of nowhere). The Bauhaus version of 'Ziggy Stardust' immediately springs to mind.

Oh yeah, on that note, I heard Love & Rockets' "Ball of Confusion" first. Also Springsteen's version of "War".

I mean, not from 120 Minutes but from some 'alternative' program on MuchMusic or possibly album-oriented radio, I think.

The Burds 8 Miles High vs John Coltrane 's India.

Rewriting into what was becoming rock.

Like John Martyn showing his love for Pharaoh while writing about his mate Nick Drake a few years later.

The Aretha Beatles cover was "Let It Be", released a month or so before their version.

Sandie Shaw's recording of "Always Something There to Remind Me" was #1 in Canada, the UK, and South Africa, acc to Wikipedia. I think I did hear it before the Naked Eyes, although it's tricky with songs I heard very young, tbh.

― to party with our demons (Sund4r)

It's weird that in the US even Sandie Shaw's version charted higher than Dionne's. Shaw was not particularly high-profile in America (biggest hit "Girl Don't Come" at #42). Dionne's version was only released in '68 though, four years after Shaw's.

I def. knew Rod Stewart/Jeff Beck's "People Get Ready" before hearing the Curtis Mayfield/Impressions original or even Dylan's covers.

I knew Rod Stewart's "You Are Everything" before the Stylistics. sadly.

same thing with "This Old Heart of Mine".

(before the Isley Brothers)

Basically the entire saggy, cover-laden back half of Rod Stewart's career.

(Only just recently learned that even 'Some Guys Have All the Luck' was a cover, although obviously not a more popular one.)

Some Guys Have All the Lunch

Summer breeze by the isley brothers before Seals & Croft. Maybe by TYpe O Negative before taht though

The Main Ingredient's version of Summer Breeze is the one to beat (but admittedly, I only discovered that one recently)

The doom-goth-metal version of "Summer Breeze" was the titles music for one of the big teen horror revival films in the 90s so I could def see how that had more traction than a crusty old AM gold hit for people of a certain age.

^^^had to look it up, it was I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

Dopn't think that was how i knew iti. Not sure why that was teh lp I picked up by them but it was. Bloody Kisses.
Don't know how many of those films I've seen. THink if any its been on tv way later.

fairly sure I heard Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" before I ever became familiar with the SOS Band's "Just Be Good to Me"

"Take Me Home Country Road" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

I didn't realize it was not a local song and was a cover until I was in high school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-tqI0D1CAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzajXmENvyo

re: “You Don’t Own Me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R22urvGcWy4

hugely popular Dutch cover version (from 1981)

fairly sure I heard Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" before I ever became familiar with the SOS Band's "Just Be Good to Me"

100% sure I did. might not have been familiar enough to pick Guns Of Brixton at the time, and didn't hear Jam Hot until the last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hphwfq1wLJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz-RNe7xoVI

The Sisters Of Mercy - Gimme Shelter
Devo - I Can't Get No Satisfaction
The Danse Society - 2000 Light Years From Home
The Soup Dragons - I'm Free

I guess I had no exposure to the Stones as a kid, except for their 80's stuff.

I knew DJ Sammy's version of "Heaven" long before I knew it was a Brian Adam's song.

I hate both versions with a passion.

*Bryan Adams

Haha, that one does genuinely surprise me.

part of it was I didn't have a cd player in my car until about 2003, so I had to play the radio, and the local adult contempt station was playing the hell out of this shitty dance version, and I'd somehow avoided the Bryan Adams version.

one week, I was at work (restaurant) and the Bryan Adams version came on, and it was like..."oh, that makes sense".

That you made it through the 80s without hearing the original was what surprised me! It was given awards for radio airplay in the US and Canada and apparently charted higher in the US: http://www.jimvallance.com/01-music-folder/songs-folder-may-27/pg-song-adams-heaven.html

lol I'm surprised too, especially since I knew just about every other Bryan Adams song.

oh man, i was a fan of that Soup Dragons song when I was 9 years old and I was today years old when I found out it was a Stones cover

fairly sure I heard Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" before I ever became familiar with the SOS Band's "Just Be Good to Me"

I had a similar realization a few years back with the St Etienne cover of Only Love Can Break Your Heart... I knew each song separately but didn't initially make the connection. I'd say that's one hallmark of a great cover version.

Or maybe that's just rationalizing my own inattentiveness.

bauhaus - third uncle
the dickies - eve of destruction

yeah Third Uncle I think I heard on taht mini lp collecting the singles that I bought in 1983. THought it really good, was probably years before I heard Eno rock. I have Taking Tiger Mountain among the printout images i have on my wall right now.

I don’t think I’ve even heard the Eno original. I think I always knew it was a cover but I can’t recall hearing the original one. Let me amend that right away.

I love the Eno song but it's not particularly famous, is it?

Oh wait I have actually heard it. I wouldn’t call the original as more popular than the cover though... I mean neither are chart hits but I think the Bauhaus one is the most popular one. At least on spotify and youtube it’s true.

I love the Eno song but it's not particularly famous, is it?

That's true of a few of the suggestions in the thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpGA0azFdCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk

For me this is all Beatles songs (which I mostly heard as jazz versions or other covers).

Also a ton of '70s funk and soul and '80s r&b, which I heard as New Orleans brass band backgrounds and quotes. Then I'd either ask somebody or randomly hear the original at some point and be like "ohhhh." Also true for a ton of samples obv.

Nazareth's cover of "This Flight Tonight" (it took fukken decades before I heard the 'riginal:)

This was true for me too but I don't consider the original more famous, I don't think. At least when I was growing up, Nazareth's version was a classic rock radio staple around here.

"Secret" classic rock Canadian Content! Just like "Born to Be Wild" (written by Edmonton's Mars Bonfire) and Alice Cooper's "Hello Hooray" (written by Toronto's Rolf Kempf).

Sinéad's version is definitely more famous than the original.

Yeah, I had assumed that post was somehow positioning Prince’s version as the “cover”

The "Prince" version was released in 2018, two years after he died, so it'd be quite a surprise if anyone knew his demo before the Sinead cover released in 1990.

The original was released by The Family in 1985, which had Prince playing keys, St. Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin singing, and regular Prince horny guy Eric Leeds on sax. It's the only song on the album that Prince didn't falsely credit as being written by other people.

(I assume all xzanfar's embed spams itt are trolling)

When She's So Unusual came out, I was a kid and not familiar w/Dirty Mind (I didn't hear the original version of the song until much later). Lauper's album sold many more copies than Dirty Mind, which I suppose makes her version more "famous" by default... though given the profile of the Prince album (and song), it sort of feels like a toss-up today.

^This is a really good one! I can't remember if it was "much" later that I heard or owned the original, but it definitely was somewhat later, although I'm sure I knew who wrote the song and knew that album existed, but it didn't have the big hits like 1999 and Purple Rain.

Yeah - I remember knowing it was a Prince cover, but our family’s Prince collection started with 1999.