If you listened to The Sunday Alternative when it was on the radio, you may remember a feature that ran for a while called 'Louie Smells Like Rock & Roll', in which I played three in a row cover versions of the songs 'Louie Louie', 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and 'I Love Rock & Roll'. Some were good, some were utter shit but I am a collector and I have to collect. I also collect covers of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' but this is a much more recent thing with me as it started during the run of the show when I found a terrible version by Paul Young and developed it into a game with my co-host Penny. My obsession began due to the fact that there are so many covers of these songs and I keep discovering more. I don't know which song came first to be honest, although I imagine it was 'I Love Rock & Roll' as it would have been the first of these that I heard, thinking as everyone does that it was a Joan Jett original (to my shame I once thought that 'I Fought The Law' was originally by The Clash - we are constantly learning).
Another misconception is that the original version of 'Louie Louie' was by The Kingsmen when in fact eight years earlier Richard Berry wrote and recorded it as a Jamaican ballad rather than the proto-punk version that everyone thinks of. It is believed to be one of the most covered songs in the history of popular music and I have only scratched the surface as far as collecting versions is concerned.
This came to mind this week following the news that Jack Ely, singer with The Kingsmen, has died. By the time the song became a hit the band had already split up and the legal bother over royalties dragged on for another thirty years. Given that Richard Berry had offloaded the song along with others for $750 and eventually becoming a millionaire in the 1980s thanks to a loophole that required his signature for use in an advert, and that The Kingsmen never followed up the success, it isn't a particularly lucky song. This got me to thinking about the other songs that I collect for no reason.
'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' were written by people gripped by depression who eventually took their own lives, which leaves 'I Love Rock & Roll' so I did a bit of research to see if anything bad had happened in connection that song, yet apart from a cover by Miley Cyrus (who has also inflicted a version of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' on the world) it seems to have come out unscathed.
This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative can be heard here.
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April housekeeping
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