I had mentioned that in the past I had issued one post with a lot of cover song stats and it was a little too busy, to say the least. So this year I spread that out to three posts. So just to recap here are the newest posts for 2024.
The Top 10 Most Covered Artists by Song Titles (2024 Update)
The Top 10 Most Covered Recording Artists by Song Versions (2024 Update)
The 2024 Update of the Most Covered Pop Songs of all Time
I have published a number of lists by genre and several more in the category of Women in music. These continue to be some of my most popular posts. I plan on a few more lists this year and as I can, I will update some of the older ones. If you like any of my posts please consider putting it on your social media feeds, I am only slightly more tech savvy than your average Neanderthal, which now that I think of it is how they described my basketball style in high school. Some things never change.
I was disappointed to learn that the song “Tom Sawyer”, which was one of my favorite “Monday songs” and the inspiration for this blog title, does not include the words “Monday Warrior”. Apparently it is “Modern Day Warrior”. Too late, I’m not changing it ;).
Sylvia Wright wrote an essay for Harpers Magazine in 1954. In it she explained the term she coined. As a child she misinterpreted some of the words from the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray.” When she heard the line “laid him on the green,” Sylvia thought it was “Lady Mondegreen.”. The term would be popularized by Jon Carroll, a San Francisco columnist.
Filling in gaps when we can’t figure out words is something our brains do. When it comes to popular songs there are some commonly known ones out there and often the interpretation is pretty funny. Sometimes much of the song becomes a bit of a Mondegreen like The Kingsman’s version of “Louie, Louie” that became a huge hit in 1963.
But it’s also a personal thing, we listen to songs and fill in words ourselves when we can’t understand the lyrics. Sometimes our creation fits the song and other times not, and we may never know the right words. Often we all hear the same thing, even though it is not what is being said. Hence the popularization of the Mondegreen. also known as oronyms.
So I would like to explore this phenomenon and talk about some of the more famous ones and if you tip me off as to one of your personal mondegreen’s, I may write about that as well. So let’s just stick with some real/popular ones to begin with. Or are they? When researching these I ran across some that make you wonder, ok someone made that up and is taking people along for the ride. Some of them may be – the words sound like something else, but does anyone actually hear it that way? Some it seems just make for a good meme.
There are other songs where we don’t mishear the lyrics, we just can’t make them out. In this case we can’t necessarily substitute a word or words. An example of this for me personally is Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets”. In this case we have a word that some have misheard, combined with a word I could not replace, so I just kind of mumble if I was singing along.
The line is:
She’s got electric boots, a mohair suit.
I think we can use our imagination to figure out the misheard word here. But what about the “mohair suit”? I could not make out what he was saying, even if I did, I would have no idea what a “mohair suit ” would be. In my mind it sounded something like “a mo ha sue”.
That said there are the obvious ones. So let’s get them out of the way shall we and then see if this idea of mine “has many eggs” (has any legs)? Leave the writing to the professionals Randy.
The Jimi Hendrix song he wrote and released in 1967 “Purple Haze” has some of the most famous misheard lyrics.
“Excuse me while I kiss the sky” was often misheard as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” (s’Excuse me, it’s sometimes written).
The Bruce Springsteen song “Blinded by the Light” that he released on his debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park” in 1973, contains a well known mondegreen. The song was covered by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1976 and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977.
The line often heard was “Wrapped up like a douche”. The actual line is “Revved up like a deuce” As is a deuce coupe car ala The Beach Boys song from 1963 “Little Deuce Coupe”.
And in the case where the singer himself sang the mondegreen once while explaining it, as a joke mind you. John Fogerty wrote and sang the lead in the CCR song “Bad Moon Rising” released in 1969.
Often heard was “There’s a bathroom on the right”. The real line is “There’s a bad moon on the rise” which based on the song title, maybe we should have figured that out.
I have several more popular ones and maybe one or two of my own but if I get any tip-offs on your private misheard lyric I may include that one as well. So we will see how many Mondegreen Mondays I can squeeze out.
The total most covered song titles written/co-written by a single recording artist.
Here are the Top 10 Artists with the most individual song titles (that they have authored) which have been covered by other artists: Listed as 2021/2024 totals.
Bob Dylan: 352/369 songs
Paul McCartney: 331/342 songs
John Lennon: 244/270 songs
David Bowie: 220/222 songs
Frank Zappa: 208/211 songs
Neil Young: 175/209 songs
Tom Waits: 196/203 songs
Bruce Springsteen: 186/194 songs
9a. Mick Jagger: 186/193 songs, 9b. Keith Richards: 186/192
Taylor Swift 180/186 and Carole King 175/186 songs
As I mentioned in the first post on Boogie Woogie things were happening in New Orleans. One of the standouts in the style was the great Fats Domino.
When it comes to Boogie Woogie and hybrid styles there are so many other notable names from New Orleans, that could play some mean piano; Tuts Washington did it all from Blues and Ragtime to any Jazz style you want. Names like Willie Hall, Champion Jack Dupree, and Alan Toussaint. Some of these names have strong connections to early Rock and Roll as well.
In part one I quoted the Dr. John song “Down in New Orleans”, and that title kind of fit the narrative more than the genre. Below is a clip of Dr. John and Jools Holland (The Squeeze) with some evidence of unequivocal Boogie Woogie. They are hamming it up but laying down some truly amazing piano playing.
As described in the introduction by David Sanborn in the Jools/Dr. John clip, here are Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, pictured in the video and the recording they are playing is “Yancy Special” composed by Meade Lux Lewis (1936). You have to love that announcer’s introduction!
I come back to this next clip every once in a while as I find it incredibly endearing. Jools Holland with Fats Domino. A perfect interactive demonstration of the New Orleans Boogie Woogie piano style.
There are different techniques used by Fats Domino in his songs. Not all of them are Boogie Woogie. In this way, Fats is the perfect segue here, and when we bring in Little Richard we see another shift in technique. Add Jerry Lee Lewis into the mix, and the conversation has to change.
“Boogie Woogie Baby” was Fats Domino’s second single, released in 1950.
Boogie Woogie had not one but several “babies”. While related, they are not by definition the same genre, so I will move two of them to separate follow-up posts to arrive in the near future. Firstly, Rock and Roll Piano (as in Jerry Lee Lewis) is not Boogie Woogie. Secondly, as I suggested in Part 1, don’t get me started on that, well that would then be a new post on Boogie Guitar.
If we go back to the first post, some of the music’s early songs in particular were dance instructionals. Not unlike the Square Dance Caller, in the live performance the singer told the dancers when to “mess around” and so forth. Boogie Woogie was very much about what Fats was saying in the above song “Boogie Woogie Baby”, a carefree expression on the dance floor. So the dancing style(s) became increasingly popular and varied.
This is not a ‘baby’ so much as a full-grown adult of Boogie Woogie, Disco. It’s not so much of a mystery when you take a look back. Let’s Boogie!
Earth, Wind & Fire with “Boogie Wonderland”, the very definition of the left hand “walking bass” of Boogie Woogie piano.
If you saw the post on Winifred Atwell whose Boogie Woogie playing springboarded her to great success and importance in the UK, well, more traditional American Boogie Woogie piano players found a place there. Blues artists of all stripes were finding an audience there, in large part to people like the Jazz Band Leader Chris Barber. This was because as Rock and Roll ramped up, things slowed down in the US for the Blues, so Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, and many others would tour Europe. Names such as Lafayette Leaque and Big Joe Duskin for example would come a bit later and were keeping it alive in both the US and the UK. The style was also very popular in Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands and elsewhere.
I started this topic with Meade Lux Lewis and somewhat followed his timeline, unfortunately he kind of “lost his chops” as they say toward the end of his life. It ended tragically when he was rear-ended by another car and crashed into a tree. That was in 1964 and he was 58.
I do want you to know he was not a one-trick pony, even though his Boogie Woogie recording catalog is impressive. In 1936 he learned to play the celesta (suh·leh·stuh) which is a keyboard instrument that uses metal tines for the sound instead of strings. Sometimes spelled celeste. Very similar to the piano but with a completely different sound, hence a different touch on the keyboard.
While Jazz players like Earl Hines started to use it occasionally in 1928, Meade was the first Blues/Boogie Woogie artist to take it up and he played it beautifully. “Breezing at the Celeste” is the on the clip below.
The song I started the first post with by Meade was released in 1929 but recorded in 1927, so we are just a few years shy of a century. It continues to be played today and is a must-know song for the boogie-woogie piano player. So I will go out the way I came in, here are some covers of his song “Honky Tonk Train Blues”.
I could list many great artists but I will finish with just four clips from some remarkable Boogie Woogie piano players. They can and do play other styles but some are best known for Boogie Woogie. A genre that is alive and well, especially in Europe. It will knock your socks off. I will list the names first then the four clips at the end.
Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake and Palmeris well known for his abilities at the keyboard and the mellotron and more, but he can lay down some impressive Boogie Woogie. So he is in the first clip that allowed me to sneak in the late and great pride of Canada, Oscar Peterson. While playing the same song the contrast will not be lost on you.
The next will be a guy who is quite busy on social media, known for his public playing and antics, some I could do without but Brendan Kavanagh from the UK is amazing. If you fast forward to 1:25 on the clip he does an excellent job on the song.
Then we have Ladyva from Switzerland. She started playing when she was 14, which for piano is very late. Well, she caught up in a hurray and has been playing fast ever since. And and now at age 36, she is one of the best in the world at Boogie Woogie among other styles.
I will finish with Axel Zwingenberger from Germany who is one of the greatest of the genre. He and his jazz drumming brother first performed in 1973 and have not stopped since.
Aubrey Wilson Mullican (1909-1967) was from Texas and known as Moon Mullican, the “King of the Hillbilly Piano Players”. He was a talented singer/songwriter and among many things he helped Hank Williams write “Jambalaya” though he is uncredited. Here is some Boogie Woogie County Style1 from 1951.
“Cherokee Boogie” (Eh-Oh-Aleena)
The lyrics of this song celebrate a Native American Indian’s discovery of dancing to a boogie beat, I found it to be positive, albeit a product of its time in 1951. Nevertheless, some language may offend.
This song was covered by the great band BR5-49 (it was a phone number in a Hee Haw skit) in 1991.
Warning that some may find the song or language used offensive. However, I have researched the song and found no evidence that it is anything more than fun and positive. ↩︎
Mostly Music Covers 