It’s the Same Old Song: 10 Records That Sound TOO Much Like That Artist’s Previous Hit
It’s great to have a hit record. Well, I assume it is, as I can’t say I’ve ever had one myself. I’ll further assume it’s great to have more than one hit record. But I’ll have to also assume that some bands tried a little too hard to have another hit — or maybe they didn’t try hard enough.
You’ll often find in the history of pop music that when a band or singer scored a hit record, either the artist or producer or manager decided the best way to keep the newly found momentum going was to release a follow-up that sounded a great deal like the hit. Heck, they figured, if the country bought their formula the first time, surely they’ll want another dose. Anyway, if the artist released something completely different it minimized the chances of their new fans recognizing them when the “new” song played on the radio.
While there is some logic to that, sometimes the resulting record didn’t fall too far from the tree. Sometimes it even sounded like it got stuck on a branch on the way down. Below are 10 records that stayed a little too close to the sound of a previous hit by that same artist, sometimes to the point of sounding like they stem from the same session minutes later.
(Regardless of the title of this article coming from a Four Tops song, I’ve completely left Motown off this list. They turned that practice into an art form, and I’m considering doing a follow-up list at some point strictly on Motown examples.)
1) “Lost In My World,” The Outsiders (Capitol, 1966)
We’ve all heard the Ohio pop combo’s 1966 classic “Time Won’t Let Me,” but have you heard their track “Lost In My World” from a few months later? Yes, you have even if you haven’t, because “Lost In My World” is little more than all the ingredients of “Time Won’t Let Me” reassembled with only the slightest different balance. Whether it’s the drum-fill intro, the key of A, double first verse with identical trumpets coming in on the second half of that verse, eighth-note drum beat on chorus that ends with solitary drum fill, similar guitar solo, and yes, the double-time vamp outro, if “Time Won’t Let Me” has it, you’re sure to hear it in “Lost In My World” as well. Even the vocal covers the same basic note range (both start on C#). Not even the lyrics were spared: “Time” begins with the words “I can’t wait” and “Lost” begins with “I waited.”
“Lost In My World” was released on a summer 1966 single, sharing vinyl with the group’s take on “Respectable,” the official A-side and the side that made the national Top 20, though “Lost” did get some play across the country as well.
2) “Why Do Kids Grow Up,” Randy & the Rainbows (Rust, 1963)
https://youtu.be/wEz890N4MEY
I don’t know about kids, but from the sound of this record, Randy & the Rainbows didn’t grow up at all musically between their spring 1963 Top Ten goldie “Denise” and this nearly identical follow-up which nationally only got to #97. Doo-wop fans love to place the blame on the Beatles and their sudden rise to fame in America wiping vocal groups off the map. Whether they did or didn’t whop the doo-woppers, the Beatles cannot be blamed for the failure of “Why Do Kids Grow Up,” which had already seen the sands of its chart life run out before anyone in America saw the invasion coming. A better culprit to blame would be the song sounding far too much like its predecessor for America to desire a copy. Similar key, melody, modulation in the same place; the only thing that wasn’t similar was the response.
In fairness, the lyrics were a little more sophisticated — at first. It is, in large part, a lyrical cousin of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” By song’s end, the previous record’s “I’m in love with you” has only progressed as far as “I’m so in love with you.” The writers apparently felt, with that line, that they truly needed to put in just one more reminder to everyone that this was the same group who sang “Denise.” But most people figured that out about two bars into this song.
3) “M’Lady,” Sly & the Family Stone (Epic, 1968)
The members of San Fran’s legendary psychedelic soul combo reportedly did not like their first big hit “Dance to the Music,” but it didn’t stop them from doing a virtual carbon copy of it a few months down the line. Perhaps it was an intentional put on; they had already released a strange “rethink” of the song on a bizarre single under the name the French Fries. But “M’Lady” was born of the same DNA as the big hit: same key, tempo, drumbeat, and fuzz bass line, same instrument by instrument buildup, same brief chordal diversion to D#, same breaks for a capella scatting. The group placed this on the flip of their 1968 single “Life” and also on the album named for that A-side.
“M’Lady” just made the American Top 100 and just missed the British Top 30. It was seen fit for inclusion on their 1970 Greatest Hits album, and was the opening number of the group’s legendary set at Woodstock in 1969.
4) “A Thousand Shadows,” The Seeds (GNP Crescendo, 1967)
If you only know one Seeds song, it’s “Pushin’ Too Hard.” No, let me amend that: if you only know one Seeds song, you actually pretty much automatically know a second. Their 1967 single “A Thousand Shadows,” though a fun listen, reeks a tiny bit of “Hey, remember us? We’re the guys who did ‘Pushin’ Too Hard.'”
“Pushin’ Too Hard,” their lone Top 40 release, is almost entirely B minor to A over and over. The only time in the entire song it deviates is at the end of the keyboard solo when for two bars it does a “You Really Got Me”-style riff in B minor. “A Thousand Shadows” is also almost entirely B minor to A, but to its credit it does have a little more deviation. First, it begins with a slow dramatic (well, at least Sky probably thought so) lead-in, before the band kicks in with their “Push”-alike. The melody is exactly the same as heard on “Pushin'” and the backing vocals are almost complete duplicates of those heard on the older song as well. (This is actually one of very few other Seeds songs with backing vocals, so it’s a pity that, in this rare instance Sky allowed for them, he made his bandmates sing pretty much the same thing as the last time.) The saving grace, and one of the few things that serves as a clue to a casual listener that he’s not listening to “Pushin’ Too Hard,” is the “Run little girl” section. In terms of chords and melody, it’s very well done. Unfortunately, it comes only once and a little too early in the song to balance things out.
5) “She Drives Me Out of My Mind,” The Swingin’ Medallions (Smash, 1966)
https://youtu.be/cM1lua_HJSE
The group that gave us “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” or at least the group that gave us the version that sold (record buyers were seemingly on holiday when Dick Holler & the Holidays fired the first “Shot” in 1964), tried to give us a double shot of the same song. “She Drives Me Out of My Mind,” written by then 19-year-old future country star and latter-day Raiders guitarist Freddy Weller, follows the “Double Shot” blueprint quite closely. Both have party-vibe group vocals, both let the compact organ do most of the driving, both songs have the singer(s) describing his (their) love in terms of addiction, and both songs’ verses follow the same exact chord pattern: a bar apiece of A to F# minor to D to E.
Though the Swingin’ Medallions sing in both songs about how they just can’t enough, most record buyers had indeed already had enough, for “She Drives Me Out of My Mind” didn’t drive any further than #71, the last time the Medallions would swing on the national charts, suggesting buyers had had enough of not only the repeated formula but the band as well.
6) “Tear Drop City,” The Monkees (Colgems, 1969)
https://youtu.be/PW_JyboHPnc
This is the only one on the list that wasn’t released relatively soon (as in, under a year) after the success of the song it recalls. Its story is a little different.
In 1966, the Monkees started their ride nicely with a pair of #1 singles. In 1967, they scored another #1 single and several that came very close. In 1968, after their TV show went off the air, they began to see their fortunes reverse, and in 1969 they never placed higher than #56 on the singles charts.
That lone Top 60 entry for the year came from one of the oldest tricks in the book about ways to revitalize a band’s chart life: do a revamp of one of your big hits that’ll draw ’em back. Well, doing a reconstruction of “Last Train to Clarksville” might have been a good idea, but the Monkees went one extra step: not only was their first 1969 single a song that sounded quite a bit like their 1966 debut single and first #1, it was even a 1966 recording. “Tear Drop City,” a Boyce-and-Hart composition and production, dated back to October 1966 sessions for the second Monkees album (and by the time the Monkees issued the song, Tommy and Bobby had already recorded and released their own version, probably thinking, “We may as well… nobody else is using it.”) In fact, it was just one of several Boyce-Hart written/produced “Clarksville” clones done that year. Another, “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day,” made it to the debut album, while “Apples, Peaches, Bananas, and Pears” ended up uneaten and unwanted on the floor alongside “Tear Drop City,” but, unlike the latter, would not get picked up for any Colgems release.
“Tear Drop City” was, like all of those songs, recorded in the key of G7 with a groovy, dirty guitar riff to lead the way courtesy of Louie Shelton’s Telecaster, and around the same tempo as well. By release, both key and tempo were slightly altered when the master was bumped up to A flat, but these masked the “Clarksville” foundation about as well as a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
7) “Black Veils of Melancholy,” Status Quo (Pye [UK], Cadet Concept [US], 1968)
The famed British combo’s first single (under their most well-known name) was the psych classic “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” which had the band psychin’ all over the world, landing in the Top Ten in several countries (peaking at lucky #7 in several) and falling just short of doing so in America, their only song to make the American Top 40 (and only one of two to make the Top 100.) The catchy ditty captures the future boogie band going through their psychedelic phase (shifter). When “Matchstick Men” set the charts on the fire, the question presented to them was how would they follow up a psychedelic key of D song that begins with and takes periodic breaks for a lead guitar line of unison guitar notes, wah-wah guitar, and has a G to A to D chorus with high bass guitar notes, lyrics about bizarre imagined pictures, and sections of D to F to C to G? They decided the answer was… with a psychedelic key of D song that begins with and takes periodic breaks for a lead guitar line of unison guitar notes, wah-wah guitar, and has a G to A to D chorus with high bass guitar notes, lyrics about bizarre imagined pictures, and sections of D to F to C to G.
Yes, Status Quo lived up to their name with their second single, “Black Veils of Melancholy,” perhaps the most blatant recycling job on this list.
How did record buyers take to this carbon copy? Well, let’s put it this way: “Pictures of Matchstick Men” was Status Quo’s first hit. “Black Veils of Melancholy” was not their second.
8) “Mirage,” Tommy James and the Shondells (Roulette, 1967)
“Here it comes again!”
“Hanky Panky,” in the summer of 1966, was Tommy James‘ first big hit, and at #1, it couldn’t have been much bigger. It took a couple of lesser, but admirably charting, singles before he and his band found their way back into the Top 10, but the fabulous “I Think We’re Alone Now,” their first single of 1967, rightly rerouted them there.
In an effort to move forward, James and his writer and producers moved backwards — literally. The story goes that writer Richie Cordell incorrectly threaded up a reel-to-reel tape of “I Think We’re Alone Now” resulting in the song playing backwards. Tommy, who was in the room at the time, liked the “found” hit and requested Cordell turn it into an actual song. The result was “Mirage,” which pretty much is what the story claims it to be: “I Think We’re Alone Now,” just in reverse. Perhaps as an inside joke, “Mirage” even includes “I Think..”‘s heartbeat section in reverse.
“Mirage” did not reverse the group’s fortunes. It didn’t chart as high as the song that inspired it, but a Number 10 charting was surely satisfying.
9) “Fever,” The McCoys (Bang, 1965)
Is having your very first single go to #1 a good thing or a bad thing? Don’t answer too quickly. Sure, it sounds ideal and like a great way to start your chart history, but it also means the pressure is already on because the only way to go is down, and any subsequent record that doesn’t go to #1 will seem like a comparative failure.
Well, despite making some fine 45s, the McCoys never did have another #1 after their 1965 debut “Hang On Sloopy” achieved as much, and their second single was as close as they ever got to repeating that accomplishment and their only return to the Top Ten. “Repeating” is an appropriate word, because they (or producers Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer) rearranged the old Peggy Lee standard “Fever” to help the group hang on to the “Hang On Sloopy”-loving audience. Identical drum intro, lead-line altered to make it more Sloop-ish, same key, chorus rerouted to the “Sloopy” chord changes, and an almost indistinguishable guitar solo.
Most fans decided to hang on for another ride, as “Fever” got up to #7, but after “Fever” — like after any fever — things cooled down.
10) “Sitting In The Park,” Billy Stewart (Chess, 1965)
This is the only song on this list that actually charted higher than the song it replicates. (Only by two places, but still.)
Billy Stewart already had a number of singles out on Chess before finally making the national Top 40 in 1965 with his pleasant ballad “I Do Love You.” It was a slow-groove number that consisted almost entirely of repetition of a bar apiece of G to Am to Bm to Am, taking one temporary break from that for a bridge based in C major 7. The single made it to #26 on the pop chart and #6 on the R & B chart. The record-buying public loved him.
They must have, because when Billy released his next single, “Sitting in the Park,” which retained all of “I Do Love You”‘s birthmarks described above to the point that it almost sounded like Billy singing different words over the same backing track (only the slight difference in the chorus chords and the absence of the bass player temporarily losing his place in “I Do Love You” lets us know that’s not what happened) they bought even more copies of it. Before long, Billy was sitting in the charts at #24 of the Top 100 and #4 for the R & B list.
In the spirit of these songs, I shall sometime down the line do another list just like it. There are plenty of other examples of duplicate tunes; the ones on the above list simply being the first 10 pulled from the hat, so if there is what you think is an obvious one I did not mention, it’s probably still sitting in the stetson and will be covered in round two.
