Things are cooling off… leaves are dropping and it’s time to get Under The Covers with WCSX!  Listen all weekend for the originals and their covers!  We’ll get you Under The Covers every hour between 10am Saturday and 6pm Sunday.

There are tons of songs that you may not know are covers!  Here are some of our favorites and their stories.

  • “I Love Rock and Roll” – The Arrows / Joan Jett

    Originally, this song was written by the band, The Arrows, just SIX years before Joan Jett covered it.  The arrows actually wrote the song as rebuttal to The Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock and Roll.”  Arrows’ lead singer, Jake Merril said this about the song’s origin, “That was a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones’ ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ I remember watching it on Top of the Pops. I’d met Mick Jagger socially a few times, and I knew he was hanging around with Prince Rupert Lowenstein and people like that – jet setters. I almost felt like ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ was an apology to those jet-set princes and princesses that he was hanging around with – the aristocracy, you know. That was my interpretation as a young man: Okay, I love rock and roll. And then, where do you go with that?”  Sadly, The Arrow’s management released the song as a B-side and it didn’t get much traction on its release.

     

     

     Joan Jett actually found this song while touring England with The Runaways.  She wanted to record it with the band, but the other members didn’t like the song and passed it up.  Joan’s take on the song, recorded in 1981 with the Blackhearts, became a MONSTER hit and one of the most enduring, core classic rock records of all time.

  • “Cum On Feel the Noize” – Slade/ Quiet Riot

    https://youtu.be/Qu_ozjAu_vM

     

    The UK was ahead of the USA in the world of glam rock.  In the 70’s glam rock bands like, Slade, did very well.  Wearing extravagant costumes and tons of make-up, Slade had huge success with “Cum On Feel the Noize” in 1973.

     

     

    Ten years later, it was Quiet Riot’s management that encouraged the band to cover Slade’s song.  Lead singer, Kevin DuBrow wanted no parts of it.  He wanted Quiet Riot to write every song on the album, so the band came up with a plan to sabotage the cover: they would be completely unprepared.  The band kept telling the producer they were working on the song, but they weren’t.  Dubrow suggested the engineer record the session “Just for giggles.”  The band started and DuBrow kept waiting for a train wreck that never happened.  He was actually mad about how the whole thing went down.  “Cum on Feel the Noize” ended up being Quiet Riot’s most successful song and lead the way to Metal Health becoming the first number ONE metal album on the Billboard 200.  Ironically, since the band didn’t really know the original, there’s a considerable amount of variation in lyrical content.

  • “Blinded by the Light” – Bruce Springsteen/ Manfred Mann's Earth Band

     

    Bruce Springsteen told VH Storytellers a lot about this song.  There are tons of personal references to the people Bruce on the boardwalk and in his general life.  The song was Bruce’s first release in 1973 and it flopped.

     

    Manfred Mann covered Bruce’s song in 1977 and it hit.  It ended up becoming the only #1 Hot 100 hit Bruce ever wrote.  Ironically, Bruce hated Manfred Mann’s much more elaborately produced version, which also earned Bruce a very nice payday.  The lyrics were changed very little with the exception of the line “cut loose like a deuce” changing to “revved up like deuce.”  This small change lead to one of the most famous misheard lyrics of all time. The line “cut loose like a deuce” with “revved up like a deuce.” 

  • "Once Bitten Twice Shy" – Ian Hunter/Great White

    “Once Bitten Twice Shy” was Hunter’s first single after leaving Mott The Hoopie, was self-titled “Ian Hunter” and reached 14 in the UK Singles Chart. A number of artists have covered this song including Shawn Cassidy, but the best-known cover is by the glam metal group, Great White in 1989. Fun facts: “Once Bitten Twice Shy” is not Hunter’s only covered song, his song “England Rocks” was also modified and then covered as “Cleveland Rocks” by The Presidents of the United States. Which was then used as the title song for the Drew Carey Show.

    Great White covered “Once Bitten Twice Shy” in 1989 on their fourth studio album, “…Twice Shy”. The album topped #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and they were nominated for a Grammy for it.  In an article written by “The Morning Call” in 2001,

    [Ian] Hunter is not so sanguine about Great White’s hit version of Once Bitten Twice Shy.” “It was a bit anaemic,” he says. “Actually, Slash found the song and wanted it for Guns N’ Roses. But Guns N’ Roses had the same manager as Great White and he persuaded Axl [Rose] to let Great White do it.”

    To Hunter’s artistic and financial sorrow. “At the end of the day you’re talking money,” he says. “If Guns N’ Roses had played it, it would have been on an album that sold 7.1 million copies, compared to Great White’s, which sold about 2.9 million.

     

Sign Up For The 94.7 WCSX Classic Rock Insider Newsletter

Get the latest Classic Rock and local stories you need to know about, plus exclusive contests, games, and more!

*
By clicking "Subscribe" I agree to the website's terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I understand I can unsubscribe at any time.