Songs that evolved into other songs

Possibly via a remix, like I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have by Primal Scream becoming Loaded thanks to some tinkering by Andrew Weatherall, or maybe a rewrite, like Higher by Sly And The Family Stone becoming I Want To Take You Higher a few albums later, or maybe some kind of weird backwards alchemy, like Waterfall becoming Don't Stop by The Stone Roses. Maybe even bands just re-recording a song later in their career, same title, same lyrics, etc, but a slightly different take on it for whatever reason.

Anyway, list them, and talk about them, here.

'Burning Down' and 'Ages of You' by R.E.M. supposedly started out as the same song (as did 'It's the End of the World As We Know It' and 'Bad Day').

An early version of "Heart of Glass" called "Once I Had Love" was written by Deborah Harry and Chris Stein in the period 1974/75. This earlier version was initially recorded as a demo in 1975. The song had a slower, funkier sound with a basic disco beat. For this reason it was known as "The Disco Song."

Could also be things like Kanye just rapping over Can or Curtis Mayfield tracks wholesale, I guess, but I find that a little less interesting.

Or Red Sails on Lodger by Bowie, which is essentially a reworking of a track off Deluxe by Harmonia.

esrly version of "Thunder Road"

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4P95cJ-XTc

Gary Numan's "Moral" off the Dance album is essentially a rewrite of "Metal" off The Pleasure Principle.

One that always confused me was "Some guys have all the luck", which Rod Stewart did, as did Robert Palmer, but beyond half of the chorus, they are dissimilar.

Or Red Sails on Lodger by Bowie, which is essentially a reworking of a track off Deluxe by Harmonia.

Not sure that has ever been admitted to ... or counts. Is there a song on "Lodger" that's built from the chords of another song played backwards? I know there are songs written that way... supposedly Beatles' "Because" is Beethoven backwards?

I was always confused by the relationship between Canned Heat's Let's Work Together and Bryan Ferry's Let's Stick Together. Turns out they're both by Wilbert Harrison, Work being a new version of Stick, 7 years after.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Work_Together

I suspect there are many, many, many songs where people have just played the chords from other songs forwards and just written a new melody / lyric / arrangement.

xpost yeah, for a long time I thought BriFerry had taken liberties with rewriting a perfectly good original.

"Life On Mars" apparently evolved from Paul Anka's "My Way", can't hear it myself but hey.

Re: Lodger, Move On is All The Young Dudes backwards. There's also the Blur tune that just nicks Boys Keep Swinging, I guess, though that's a different thing.

"My Little Red Book" + "The Theme from Steptoe and Sun" = "Interstellar Overdrive"

Life on Mars evolved from Bowie's version of Comme d'habitude by Claude François, My Way was Paul Anka's version.

There were those Floyd songs on Animals that were played live earlier and were supposedly different in the early versions but I've never heard them so I wouldn't know

Raving and Drooling ---> Sheep
You Gotta Be Crazy ---> Dogs

James Brown to thread.

Meaning that there are countless instances where he recorded a song and then when he heard it thought he hadn't gotten it quite right, so he recorded the next one.

does Thom Yorke inventing "Like Spinning Plates" by playing an early version of "I Will" backwards count?

Grace Jones's Slave to the Rhythm is basically an album of variations of one song. There are two well-known versions of "Slave to the Rhythm" (the song), I'm not sure which one came first.

Buzzcocks "Lipstick" evolved into Magazine "Shot By Both Sides" (although "Shot By Both Sides" had the earlier release date).

U2's "One" evolved out of working on a bridge for "Ultraviolet".

Alice Cooper's 'Elected' was a re-working of an earlier song called 'Reflected'.

The Spades: We Sell Soul became a 13th Floor Elevators Song (can't think of the title right now).

Iron Maiden b-side Invasion became Invaders on The Number of the Beast.

Many themes, motives and different titled songs on Chemical Playschool 4 by the Legendary Pink Dots became songs on The Tower album.

Re: Lodger, Move On is All The Young Dudes backwards. There's also the Blur tune that just nicks Boys Keep Swinging, I guess, though that's a different thing.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:11 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Boys Keep Swinging' came out of 'Fantastic Voyage'. 'Fantastic Voyage' and 'Boys Keep Swinging' have EXACTLY the same chord progression and structure.

John Lennon's "Child of Nature," which he wrote in India and demoed for the White Album, was abandoned and eventually resurfaced on Imagine as "Jealous Guy."

Some of LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 became Someone Great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7-m32c6zsc

there's also an iggy one on lodger, isn't there?

los lobos songs on graceland, apparently
also the stuff eno did with cluster, i have heard

Parts of "Buck Hill'' were used later in "Kiss Me On the Bus".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrHGdub1JXA

The bridge of the Who's "Melancholia" has a similar phrasing/use of suspended chords that later popped up in "Pinball Wizard" and "I'm Free." More obviously, "Sparks" and "Underture" from Tommy are re-workings of the second half of "Rael" from Sell Out.

And the Small Faces' "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" is pretty much the same song, done instrumentally, as an earlier Small Faces song whose name escapes me at the moment.

there's also an iggy one on lodger, isn't there?

― thomp, Thursday, June 7, 2012 3:14 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep... 'Red Money' came out of 'Sister Midnight'.

And the Small Faces' "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" is pretty much the same song, done instrumentally, as an earlier Small Faces song whose name escapes me at the moment.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Thursday, June 7, 2012 5:14 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'I Got Mine' :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3cevhViz18

so many Beach Boys songs

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark's B-side '66 And Fading' is made up of the string-synth part from 'Silent Running' (from the Dazzle Ships album) with the tape played backwards and running at a slow speed.

On The Skids Days In Europa album: the closing track 'Peaceful Times' came out of playing the opening track ('Animation') backwards.

Going back to the Who, the end section of "Glow girl" - unreleased at the time but recorded in 67 / 68 - goes "It's a girl Mrs Walker, it's a girl", which changed gender and became "It's a boy" on "Tommy".

'I Got Mine' :)

Yes! Thank you! I should've remembered that, since I've been listening to nothing but the new reissues for the last couple of weeks.

Orbital: Beelzedub on Wonky came out of Satan.

And there's Halcyon and Halcyon+on+on, which is kind of different but in the ballpark.

Undecided by Shack, from Waterpistol, reappears as an instrumental reprise on the Michael Head and The Strands album. Which, again, is slightly different, but in the ballpark.

On Camel's Rain Dances album, the title track is just a different version of the opener, 'First Light', if I remember!

Thers that UNKLE instrumental off the debut album that Ian Brown sang over and they released as a single with a new title. Didn't Coldplay do something similar?

Oh yeah, 'In The Night' by Pet Shop Boys is based on the same chord progression (and has the same tempo) as 'Opportunities', which it was the B-side of. This was done deliberately, I think. Dunno why it took me so long to think of that one, especially since the Please-era B-sides have just been polled.

Blue Oyster Cult - "I'm On the Lamb, but I Ain't No Sheep" on their debut became "The Red and the Black" on Tyranny and Mutation

The melody of "Almost" by OMD was a mutation of the keyboard part of "Camera Camera" by the Teardrop Explodes. OMD had seen the Teardrops at Erics and were messing around with their song and it turned into "Almost". (This anecdote was in the OMD "Messages" biography)

'Karmacoma' into 'Overcome'? Sort of...

also "Eurochild" into "Hell Is Around The Corner"

Marr's 'Money Changes Everything' became Ferry's 'The Right Stuff'.

second side of "neu! 2"

When You Wish Upon a Star > Surfer Girl

"My Sweet Lord" was a lightbulb moment for Phil Spector, and became the basis for the Chiffons "He's So Fine"

Pulp's "Cocaine Socialism" into "Glory Days"

Possibly similar to Overcome and Karmacoma, there's You Doo Right by Can and Movin' On Up by Primal Scream; lyrics reinvented almost wholesale.

"My Sweet Lord" was a lightbulb moment for Phil Spector, and became the basis for the Chiffons "He's So Fine"

Through the magic of time travel no less

You Doo Right by Can and Movin' On Up by Primal Scream; lyrics reinvented almost wholesale.

lol man this gets repeated a lot on the basis of Gillespie quoting a grand total of what, two lines? the songs are nothing alike.

Actually yeah, that's a good point. It's in my head as a bigger rip than it is - its only actually the opening two lines, isn't it?

yeah, gillespie just starts out w a quotation

I just remember it coming up on that recent Screamadelica vs. Kid A thread as evidence of the krautrock influence on the former album and I dunno it seems pretty thin... by that standard you could just as easily argue that the album was influenced by the Jeffersons

The Spades: We Sell Soul became a 13th Floor Elevators Song (can't think of the title right now).

― Sebastian (Royal Mermaid Mover), Thursday, June 7, 2012 2:38 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tried to Hide on Psychedelic Sounds

Jeffrey Lee Pierce took a couple of Flipper songs to totally different places. I think there's something that came out of Get Away on the Flamingo e.p., have definitely heard live tracks.
The Miami version of CCR's Run Through The Jungle is also pretty different. JLP using a lot of phrases nicked from blues songs where Fogerty seemed to be describing something out of Vietnam.

There's a track on Monster Movie by Can that has a central riff that's revisited on a track on Tago Mago. Is it Outside My Door to Mushroomhead?
Might show how the 2 different singers influenced the development of an improvisation?

what's that Wilco song that uses Rocket from the Tombs lyrics

Is it cheating to say that many old blues songs became Led Zeppelin songs?

I dunno about "many"

Zep re-appropriated a lot of stuff though - just as much left-field folk as blues imho

John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Spirit, Joan Baez

Andy Partridge came up with XTC's 'Books Are Burning' after messing around with the chords from The Beach Boys' 'I Get Around'. 'Stupidly Happy' was written after he jammed Rolling Stones riffs over a drum machine.

There's a difference between being influenced/ripping off another song and releasing a new version of a song that had originally appeared somewhere as a "first draft".

For example,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvCUJgnVg3o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeCcuH-EsuM

(Of course, with Oasis, it was usually the other way around, but not in this case)

Led Zeppelin infamously ripped off loads of blues and folk musicians, but here they ripped off themselves in their previous incarnation as the Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds (and also ripped off Keith Relf, who was uncredited for Zep's "Tangerine" even though it retained a full verse of lyrics he wrote for "Knowing That I'm Losing You" from the Yardbirds' last studio recording session from early 1968). Same basic verses, but complete different melody and lyrics on the chorus. Check out the Mellotron!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPh1r32TCMY

songs that sound like other songs

that's pretty wild, Lee.

Another from The Who: "Naked Eye" partially evolved out of the "My Generation" jam on Live At Leeds (and their other early 1970 shows)

The instrumental break from "Havana Affair" became the riff for "Pinhead":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6UlXZxch-A

Steve Miller took a riff from his "My Dark Hour" and turned it into "Fly Like An Eagle":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A61i8xsFkno

"I Wonder" by The Squires (featuring Neil Young) years later became part of Neil's "Don't Cry No Tears".

More Who:

While I wouldn't count demos -- that is, "Can you believe the demo for the song evolved into the song?" -- "Baba O'Riley" underwent several renovations before the Who even got hold of it.

First there was the 9 1/2 minute instrumental demo (which is fucking brilliant):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-layDeazY8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6AD951471BEE5D25

Then the 7 1/2 minute demo with vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh4wkMZXONc

Then there's a song called "Teenage Wasteland," using "Baba O'Riley"'s lyrics, but with a completely different melody and arrangement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmbaWtQoLM0

D'oh, sorry, first link shoulda been this...sorry, didn't mean this to be so messy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-layDeazY8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6AD951471BEE5D25

OK, that still didn't work...search on YouTube for "Townshend Baba O'Riley Demo."

Was that the on-line equivalent of John Peel's "oops, wrong speed" there?

Something like that. Although, to the best of my knowledge, Peel never mixed vodka with RockStar energy drink.

Another Yardbirds/Led Zep example - the guitar solo (starting at 1:58) in the Yardbirds' "Think About It" was later recycled in its entirety for "Dazed and Confused":

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

Here are the Yardbirds performing "Dazed and Confused" in 1968:

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

... and of course <i>that</i> song was merely a cover of this 1967 recording (the audio is awful on the Youtube post, with the classic descending bassline almost inaudible, but you can get the gist of it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc

and obv large swaths of hip-hop and rap samples or borrows from older songs

Stephen Stills took his Buffalo Springfield song "Questions" and made it the second half of the CSNY track "Carry On":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDjmmCvTH7o

Meanwhile Neil Young took his own (albeit unissued at the time) Springfield track "Down Down Down" and--after adding new lyrics--incorporated it into his CSNY jam suite "Country Girl":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgw9R2kzG3Q

The Monkees "Goin' Down" started out as the backing tracks for an intended cover of Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm," then they decided to write their own song on top of it instead.

Siouxsie & the Banshees "Peek-a-Boo" was built upon sections of the horns and drum tracks played backwards from their cover of John Cale's "Gun."

Wilco did Outtasite (Outtamind) and Outtamind (Outtasite) (I may have sic'd these titles slightly) on Being There.

"Revolution 9" developed out of the last eight minutes of the 20 minutes jam on "Revolution 1".

hey hey my my -> my my hey hey

Any reason why the song credits be different?

The title track on The Police's Reggatta de Blanc came from an extended jam they used to do live during the middle-eight of 'Can't Stand Losing You'.

I think they never stopped doing that middle bit, live.

One peel session had it as titled "the missing bit from the middle of "Can't Stand Losing You""

Ha!

Phish did this a bunch, mostly due to things evolving through live performance. The one I remember is the end section of "The Curtain With" evolving into "Rift".

Bob Pollard has reworked older songs countless times:

Wall and Windows became Hardcore UFOs
Crocker's Favorite Song > Class Clown Spots A Ufo
Tell Me > Tractor Rape Chain
Superwhore > The Who Vs. Porky Pig
Girl From The Sun > Do The Collapse
Reptilian Beauty Secrets > Idiot Princess
Sacred Space > Office of Hearts
Rocket Head > Teenage FBI
many more...