The song was originally written and performed by Dolly Parton in 1974. She wrote it for her mentor and partner Porter Wagoner after leaving their band.
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Nirvana's ‘Love Buzz’ is a cover of Shocking Blue.
Art of Noise's ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is a reworking of the ‘Robinson Crusoe Suite’, theme for the 1964 tv series. (Just like they did with ‘Peter Gunn’ and ‘Dragnet’, but this time afaik rather out of the blue and without any involvement from anyone else.)
Madness' ‘One Step Beyond’ is originally by Prince Buster, from 1964.
Frank Sinatra's ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ was written in 1954 by Bart Howard, recorded by Kaye Ballard.
Björk's ‘It's Oh So Quiet’ is Originally a German song ‘Und jetzt ist es still’ performed by Horst Winter in 1948. English lyrics written by Bert Reisfeld, performed by Betty Hutton in 1951.
Army of Lovers' ‘Let The Sunshine In’ is a Cover of “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” from the musical ‘Hair’ (1967) and the recording release “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” by The 5th Dimension.
The Clash's ‘I Fought the Law’ was written by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets, released in 1960, and popularized by a cover by The Bobby Fuller Four in 1966.
The Specials' ‘A Message To You Rudy’ is a cover of Dandy Livingstone.
Musical Youth's ‘Pass The Dutchie’ is a cover of The Mighty Diamonds.
This Mortal Coil's ‘Song To The Siren’ was written by Tim Buckley and Larry Beckett, first recorded by Tim Buckley in 1970.
In a kind of a curious inversion, Jackson Browne recorded a cover of the song ‘These Days’ written by Jackson Browne and originally recorded with Jackson Browne on the guitar — but sung by Nico. Apparently there were a bunch of such cases.
Adding to this extensive list (thanks for doing this - TIL about Misirlou!)
Hound Dog by Elvis was a cover of the Big Mama Thorton version. Elvis was a prolific thief of songs from Black musicians.
Like 1/3 of Sublime songs were covers.
Half-cover, Boney M's Rasputin is built around a hook that is a Balkan song that is debated as to the origin. The documentary about it is sort of hilarious.
Nirvana's Man Who Sold the World was a David Bowie cover
Sinead O'Conner's Nothing Compares 2U is a Prince cover (hers is better), and both are covers of an earlier version by The family
Louie Louie by the Kingsmen was a cover of a 1957 version by Richard Berry
All Along the Watchtower originally by Bob Dylan.
Respect was originally by Otis Redding, not Aretha
House of the Rising Sun was an oooold folk song that the Animals just did really well.
Me and Bobby McGee....Lady Marmalade...Proud Mary...Video Killed the Radio Star...Tainted Love....Bette Davis Eyes...Taco's weird version of Puttin' On the Ritz...Cum On Feel the Noise.... all the popular ones are covers.
I could go on, but covers are just really common. That's the beauty of art, it can be an interpretation of something in a new way.
David Bowie apparently got a lot of comments for "covering a Nirvana song" despite the Nirvana Unplugged recording ending with Cobain saying "That was a David Bowie song."
Probably fueled his legal battle with Vanilla Ice.
‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was written by Prince, as The Family was his band. Not sure if Prince released a solo version before O'Connor: Wikipedia only mentions a live version from three years later.
‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Woolley, and released by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, and three months later by Horn and Downes' band The Buggles, which initially also included Woolley. So it's a weird case of two versions more than a cover.
Thanks for the clarification. I had always thought it was Prince and just figured some other band got mixed up in there i just wasnt aware of. Turns out Prince's band's name was my blind spot.
I had to look that up, actually, because it's typically asserted that Prince wrote the song for O'Connor. I'm not into his music, so didn't know about The Family before.