Part 1 - Songs That You Thought Were Originals ... But They Weren't

Part 1

A damn fine music critic, and very good friend of mine, was recently expressing her absolute amazement that a certain song that she'd heard was not the original. We then discussed this strange phenomena of today's generation not knowing anything about the versions of songs that preceded them on this planet and naturally enough, one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was bewildered to find that I was in the same boat concerning so many songs that I thought were originals .... but they weren't.

Anyway - this discussion germinated deep in the bowels of my mind and I thought - hey, why not write a post, or more, about it. Now - this is the sort of post that could just go on and on and on, but I'm not enthusiastic enough to carry it on forever, so I thought I'd pick five or six songs that I thought were originals and present them to you, along with the real originals, and let you listen for yourself.

The songs I've settled upon aren't necessarily the best of the ones that could have formed part of this post (there were lots and lots of them), but I didn't want to waste too much time chasing down all of the originals for the songs that have come to light, and it really was just a matter of whichever ones I located first, they became part of the series of posts.

Today we'll kick it all off with the song "Sailing," which I'm certain that most of you will have heard of. To be honest, it has never been one of my favourite songs and although I acknowledge that it was a huge hit and therefore it must have something going for it, I just never really liked it. But I was astonished to learn that it wasn't an original version. When I tracked down the real version, I actually didn't mind it too much. It's still never going to be one of my favourite songs, but I find it more listenable than the version which became such a giant hit.

Nope - this is not the original version (1975) ...

This is the original version (1972) ...

Racey - "Cry Baby Cry"

I'm sure that most of you have heard of this band, formed in 1976, who unleashed a raft of singalong pop tunes upon us during the seventies. Most of their hits are still played on radio shows, world wide, to this day.

The band was formed by the band's lead vocalist, Richard Gower, and they kicked things off with by playing the English pub circuit before they were "discovered" by one of the world's most famous record producers at that time, the one and only Mickie Most.

In November 1978, the band's second single catapulted them into the charts with a song that seemed to be playing every single time we turned the radio on. "Lay Your Love On Me" was that song and it was a huge hit throughout Europe and Australia and it was very quickly followed up with a similar sounding song, "Some Girls."  That wasn't the end of it as the hits continued to roll and it wasn't long before the band had a huge album, "Smash And Grab," and that's the album I've selected today's tracks from.

Many of the band's hits, including the two I've mentioned above, were written by prolific hit song writers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, so they were always going to be successful.

Rather than post the songs that the band are most known for, I've decided today to go for a couple of the other album tracks, lesser known for sure, but both of which could easily have been released as singles. I've also thrown in an excerpt of another Racey song which might be of some interest, as it was later reworked, renamed and released by another unknown artist in 1981 and it went on to become a worldwide number one hit for that artist. The original song was titled, "Kitty," and I'll leave it to you to play and work out which song it later became.

And here's the excerpt of a Racey song which later became a huge worldwide number one hit for an unknown artist in a cheerleading uniform.

Slade - "In For A Penny"

What can I tell you about Slade that you don't already know? How about the fact that today's lead song is the only Slade song to ever feature the accordion? Yep - that'll do just fine.

I've featured the band previously, on a couple of occasions, so I'll leave it you to chase up the previous songs in the artist list somewhere at the left of this post if you choose to do so.

I just loved Slade as a young fellow and I still do to this very day. I used to have a haircut based on the one that Dave Hill had (he's the fellow on the very right of the picture above) and even though it's a little embarrassing these days to reflect on such a haircut, it seemed pretty cool back then.

Onto the songs - today's first song appeared on their 1975 album, "Nobody's Fools," and although I can't recall it ever being released as a single here in Australia, apparently it was because it sounded like one of their earlier hits, "Coz I Luv You." I don't think it's in the same neighbourhood as "Coz I Luv You," but it's still a bloody good song.

The second song, "When The Lights Are Out," appeared on an album that was a bit of a change of direction for the band, "Old, New, Borrowed And Blue." The album consisted of hit after hit and probably featured more slower songs than any other Slade album I can recall. The song was a bit of a ballad and was the first to feature Jimmy Lea on vocals (check it out right here if you'd like to hear more of Jimmy's solo material). The song was also covered by one of my favourite bands, Cheap Trick, on their 2009 album, "The Latest."

Well I'm a-thinking that might be enough gabbling on from me - why not get on to the music!

Surprisingly, I even managed to find a video for this song, so here it is.

Royseven - "No Romance"

I took a cab ride the other day with an Irish driver and strangely enough, it reminded me that I'd written this post (at least most of it) a few weeks ago and that maybe I should roll my sleeves up and finish it off.

So here we go ...

Royseven are an Irish band and I can't remember how the hell I first heard of them, but these days I do tend to forget much more than I remember, so I guess it's not all that strange an occurrence. The lads have released two albums to date and since I only have one of them, guess where today's songs have been taken from???  Yep - the album is titled, "You Say, We Say," and that also happens to be the name of one of the tracks I'm bringing to you.

With Paul Walsh out front on vocals, the boys got together and became Royseven in 2003 and they started to attract interest almost immediately. I bet a lot of budding musos would be very jealous at that sort of start and it led to them undertaking quite an extensive tour during which they backed up many very notable musical acts.

The album that today's tracks have been taken from was completed in 2010 and today's lead off track was the fourth single from the album. The second track, albeit the title track from the album, has not been released as a single.

Okay - the other members of the band are Sam Garland (guitar), Paul O'Hara (keyboards), Eamonn Barrett (guitar), Bernard O'Neill (bass) and Darragh Oglesby (drums).

The band's website: www.royseven.com

Soul Asylum - "The Juice"

Soul Asylum, known predominantly for their 1993 magnahit, "Runaway Train," released a new album last year and I reckon it's a bit of all right. The title of the album is "Delayed Reaction" and it features songs just as classy as the music featured on any of their previous releases.

These days, the band's a little different from the one that featured on their hit record, but the sound is as tight as ever. They still manage to produce some very nice pop rock and most importantly, they still feature the soothing vocals of Dave Pirner. The other lads who make up the band are Michael Bland (drums), Winston Roye (bass), and Justin Sharbono (lead guitar). Tommy Stinson (bass) also played with the band during the recording of the latest album, but they had a bit of trouble nailing him down at times and my understanding is that he has now departed.

Wanna check out the band some more? Then here's the band's site.

Now - I couldn't really find a good quality clip of the band performing "The Juice" so I've decided to go for a flashback clip of the band singing their massive, massive international hit, "Runaway Train." It's such a great song that I'm sure you won't have any complaint - now I can't get the damn thing out of my head.

Holly Elle - "Don't Come Home"

I was recently contacted by the wonderful LaFamos people (hi there Amanda) concerning an artist they had on their books and that artist was the wonderfully pop sounding Holly Elle.

Holly hails from that beautiful place that we all call Canada (that's it's name so I guess that's only fair). She is a classically trained singer who has turned her hand to pop and she does a wonderful job of it. Apparently it's her parents' fault that she fell into the pop side of music, because they were the ones who let her listen to the magical Beatles, the melodies of Abba, the perfectly crafted tunes of Elton John and similar artists. I think she actually has one of those voices that someone mixed up with Eurovision might be interested in.

Holly has released two EP's to date and the latest, "Leopardess," is a real mix of pop tunes which has a touch of everything. There's a mix of electronica, pop, and ballads and I had some trouble deciding which songs to bring you here today. While I was listening to the EP for about the fifth time, I was still changing my mind about which songs to put on the blog. I think the only song I wasn't really fond of was the electronic feeling "Predator," which apparently has been chosen as the first single from the EP. I don't understand how these single releases are chosen, but I think it's a real mistake. Any one of the rest of the songs could have easily appeared here, but there was something about "You Deserve A Song" that stuck in my head, so that definitely had to be one of the songs. Then there was "Who I Am" or perhaps "Wanna Be Loved" or maybe even "Seeing Red" ..... NO - make up your mind I told myself!!!

Then I confused myself further by starting to listen to Holly's first EP, "Infinitude." Although I didn't enjoy this EP as much as I did the other one, there were a couple of pretty decent efforts on it as well. The two songs that stood out to me were probably "Don't Come Home" and "Twisted" but I also liked "Protect My ‹3" (I think ‹3 is another way of saying heart). Actually, this EP is pretty good too, but I'm not a real big fan of electronica and I think there's a bit too much of that for me contained on the EP.

After listening to both EP's, I thought I may as well post one song from each of them. Then I changed my mind about 6 or 7 times as to which one I'd lead off with - this blogging can be a very confusing thing you know. In the end, I decided that it didn't really matter which song kicked things off because you're going to hear them both anyway, but there was a strength about "Don't Come Home" which eventually made it my lead off choice. I hope that's okay with Holly if she ever happens to stumble across the blog.

Okay - both EP's are just fine, but I think the growth is obvious from her first EP to the second one. I think her latest has a little more emotion and the songs are better crafted and I guess I just like the tunes a little more, but there are a couple of gems amongst both EP's and they are well worth a listen if you have the time.

If you'd like to learn more about Holly, then her website is here and if you'd like to purchase her EP's and support her in her quest to become a pop artist, then her EP's are available on iTunes (links below). Of course you can also purchase the EP's directly from Holly's website.

iTunes - "Leopardess"

iTunes - "Infinitude"

The Summer Set - "Love To You"

Here's a band from Arizona that has a little touch of Roxette about it - nice old fashioned pop/rock and a bit of a singalong aura around the tunes.

Accompanying Brian Dales (vocals) are Josh Montgomery (guitar), John Gomez (also on guitar, as well as piano), Stephen Gomez (bass) and Jess Bowen (drums). Who doesn't enjoy seeing a female bashing the skins (hi to my daughter Karen who was also a drummer).

Both of today's songs have been lifted from the band's 2011 album, "Everything's Fine," and it's a treasure chest full of nice little songs with catchy chorus lines which stick in your noggin'. It was the band's second full album and is one of those albums that will brighten up your day anytime at all.

The band has an official site, so check them out and listen to some more of their tunes.

I was quite surprised to hear, while listening to a few of their albums, a remake of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and as cover versions go, it's pretty good.

Check them out - I think you'll probably like 'em.