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This is a weak category – I wish I could find better examples of it
Somebody Loan Me a Dime – Boz Scaggs
Brother Can You Spare a Dime? – (?)
Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell
The '90s cover of “Big Yellow Taxi” should have changed the line from “they took all the trees, put em in a tree museum, then they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see em” – they should have changed that to like $8.50
King of the Road – Roger Miller
Find the origin of the twin guitar sound, used in Southern Rock, but that an early and clear example of is in Wishbone Ash's “Phoenix,” also Thin Lizzy's “Bad Reputation” (two different songs with the same title, also Joan Jett)
Muzak, or whatever, versions of Uriah Heep, “Easy Livin'” and Alice Cooper, “School's Out” played between sets, I'm ashamed to say, at a free Guided by Voices show (summer '98) at Central Park
Ramble On – Led Zeppelin
Magic Bus – The Who
Ramblin' Man – Allman Brothers
Jessica – Allman Brothers
Shooting Star” or “Feel Like Making Love – Bad Company
Not real strong.
Shooting Star should also go into a new Lyrics category: Pretentiously worded: “Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song / Love Me Do, I think it was / and it . . .” –Why it's pretentious: it's a fictional situation, presented by the singer. The narrator/voice/storyteller is omnipotent and knows it was Love Me Do, rather than some other Beatles song, that was so influential in the protagonist's life. The clumsy writer incorporates the “I think it was” conceit without really understanding or thinking about how such a device is properly used.
This reminds me of the Deep Blue Something situation. About how switching Roman Holliday to Breakfast at Tiffany's by the songwriter, to use a “more well-known Audry Hepburn movie” pulls the rug out from under the following two lines: “and I said, I think, I remember the film” “as I recall, we both kinda liked it” – as if you'd only dimly remember having seen Breakfast at Tiffany's and as if a couple having that kind of ho hum response to it wouldn't brand the two of them both as complete idiots.
It must be hard for metal bands not to rip off/sound like Black Sabbath. Listening to Metallica's Ride the Lightning, “The Call of Ktulu,” an instrumental, sounds like Sabbath. Metallica doesn't sound like Deep Purple, even though everyone in metal was in Deep Purple or played with someone who was.
Redo “New Little Girl” by Off Broadway a la Dan Zanes as a children's song
Why are there two different Buffalo Soldier songs, one by Bob Marley; the other one I have is by the Persuasions, on their Street Corner Serenade album
“My Little Lady” Jimmie Rodgers; the lady is Sadie.
Dave Cousins of The Strawbs and Peter Gabriel sound somewhat alike. When I was like 12 I read a review in which the third and fourth songs below were written about as being alike. This first set me on the trail of The Strawbs, who are kind of like a combination of Genesis and Jethro Tull, who, after several periods of bearing them in shame, I'm confident enough to say are two of my favorite groups, certainly my two favorite art rock groups
Beside the Rio Grande – The Strawbs
Soldier's Tale – The Strawbs
Down by the Sea – The Strawbs
Down the Dolce Vita – Peter Gabriel
That invoke the feeling of living in a town, a la “Penny Lane.” Artistically embodied populism
Moribund the Burgermeister – Peter Gabriel
Harold the Barrel – Genesis
“Mambo Watusi” Rene Bloch is on that one with 1964-era Beatles cover group the Swallows doing I Want to Hold Your Hand
Frank Sinatra did “Being Green” (doing a cover of a song by a frog!). Sarah Vaughan album contains (a great cov–, er, album art) “Easy Evil” Blood, Sweat & Tears; “Run to Me” Bee Gees (“me lovin' you, *boy* / you lovin' me”); “Rainy Days and Mondays” Carpenters; “Alone Again, Naturally” (Gilbert O'Sullivan)