ASK MOJO
Who re-recorded their songs?
Let us solve all rock conundrums and join the dots of music obscuria.
Version galore!: Nat ‘King’ Cole cut four versions of The Christmas Song
Getty (2), Alamy
Roxy Music in 1973 – will the band’s 2022 London O2 gig be their last?
Gamechanger Tommy Edwards’ 1958 hit
I was listening to Townes Van Zandt’s
Rear View Mirror,
an album of re-recordings of some of his greatest songs. Is this practice widespread, and why bother?
Carl Scully, via e-mail
MOJO says: Where to begin? Probably that lots of well-known songs exist in multiple versions. In keeping with the season, it’s worth remembering that Nat ‘King’ Cole cut The Christmas Song twice in 1946, again in 1953 and from mono-to-stereo in 1961, and that the version of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas that yuletiders get misty to is a 1947 re-recording made after the 1942 master was damaged. More recently, Taylor Swift has re-created four LPs to circumvent ownership disputes, a path also taken by Def Leppard. There are numerous other motives: the urge to polish up older songs (see 2012 ELO-coverthemselves LP Mr Blue Sky or Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells 2003); re-recordings for budget labels (consider Del Shannon’s lacklustre ’80s revisiting of Runaway for K-Tel, among many other sometimes gruesome examples); changing perspectives (see Joni Mitchell’s orchestral, 40-a-day 2000 version of Both Sides Now or James Brown’s 1970 jazz arrangement of Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag); dissatisfaction with a released work (see Cheap Trick’s 1997 re-recording-with-Steve-Albini of 1977’s In Color); conceptual playfulness (get your head round Will Oldham’s 2004 LP Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music); ‘unplugged’ acoustic re-imaginings (Prefab Sprout and The Cure were among the bands to do this), and beyond. Those interested can find further examples of re-jigging by Kate Bush, Sinatra, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Paul McCartney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pink Floyd, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, John Fahey, The Everly Brothers, the Pistols and more – and can we say the songs on Roy Orbison’s 1987 set In Dreams sit very proudly beside the originals?