#944. Lineage of Song: “I Shot the Sheriff”

 

Bob Marley

Eric Clapton

The legend as to why this one happened is that Eric Clapton thought Bob Marley deserved more exposure. He did, and he did!

#943. Lineage of Song: “She Said She Said”

Beatles

 

Mark Mulcahy

This one’s really interesting. Mojo, one of those music magazines that attaches CDs to the cover, underwent a whole project of compiling Beatles cover albums for their most famous releases about a fifteen years back. Since I never subscribed to Mojo it was a constant treasure hunt checking the shelves for a new release. “She Said She Said” is from Revolver, and the Mark Mulcahy cover is how I fell in love with the song (the whole cover album is great), since it’s otherwise one of the more obscure Beatles tracks.

I don’t know, and since internet coverage is sadly never really complete it’s been tough trying to verify over the years, if I got the whole collection (as far as I could tell there was only one other, from just before I first saw the project’s results), so here’s the albums Mojo covered: Revolver (as Revolver Reloaded), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (since most of my collection is in binders and the disc itself isn’t labeled I don’t have titles for this or the next one), Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album (as No. 0000001 and No. 0000002), Abbey Road (as Abbey Road Now!), and Let It Be (as Let It Be Revisited).

#942. Lineage of Song: “Viva la Vida”

 

Coldplay

Weezer

“Viva la Vida,” full of strings and chiming bells, gave new dimensions to Coldplay, and was embraced as a major new addition to rock lore, which led to a cover version by Weezer included as a bonus track on its Hurley album just a few years after its release. (And yes, Weezer named its album after the character from Lost, which is why he appears on the cover.)

#941. Lineage of Song “Seven Nation Army”

White Stripes

Oak Ridge Boys

C. W. Stoneking

Living Colour

Audioslave

Flaming Lips

KT Tunstall

Metallica

Maroon 5

Kind of went all out with this one. “Seven Nation Army” might be considered the last hurrah of the rock era. It was hailed instantly as a classic. Jack White and Meg White (not siblings but exes) were the epitome of the garage band, the last innovation of the rock formula. Fans have been decrying the death of rock ‘n’ roll since at least Nirvana lost Kurt Cobain, and while there are still significant acts with hit songs (Imagine Dragons are the leading contenders), there’s minimal mainstream awareness compared to rock’s heyday, when it was inescapable. Jack White continues as a solo artist these days, and has also transformed into the last historian, still actively pursuing his passion for the form and music in general. 

#940. Lineage of Song: “Minnie the Moocher”

 

Cab Calloway was one of the classic artists to show up populating the Blues Brothers music landscape. He’s included here mostly because it’s him performing the same song in two different eras, and at least for my dad, who loves him in the movie, when I got him a CD of vintage Calloway, was utterly indifferent. Sometimes artists age to perfection, having performed the same material for years. That was my dad’s opinion, anyway.

#939. Lineage of Song “Theme from M*A*S*H”

As a kid who grew up with a dad who loved M*A*S*H, listening to the instrumental theme song was just a fact of life. It was years, decades, before I finally saw the movie (both were based on a book by Richard Hooker, which I read a few years ago), and found out the theme song had lyrics! The film’s director, Robert Altman, contracted the job of writing the lyrics to his son, who subsequently, as the legend goes, raked in perpetual piles of cash when the song played weekly and then forever in syndication, thanks to the show.

#938. Lineage of Song: “Theme from Rawhide”

 

In Blues Brothers, the boys are challenged to play Country/Western music, an archaic term at this point (my parents always used it, too), but historically relevant. Western was basically traditional American folk, the original pop music (“Oh My Darling, Clementine;” “Home on the Range,” “Oh! Susanna”), part and parcel with the genre being a longtime staple in film and television, the classic cowboy way. So they didn’t do a Country song, of course, but a Western, the theme to the classic TV show. Today, like cowboy movies, Western doesn’t really exist in the pop culture, and Country is associated most with Southern living. Probably the cowboy hats the guys invariably wear are a relic of the Country/Western days.