Artists who reuse old songs on new albums

[jobotic]

He recorded these at the same time in 1958 but Let's Get Together wasn't released until it was put on a compilation in the sixties. I don't know why.





Milkshakes/Mighty Caesers/Headcoats/Heacoatees/Del Monas and other Billy Childish outfits must have released loads of the same songs but I can't be arsed to find them all out.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I didn't realise it was an oldie! Is the original recording out there somewhere? I guess their tactic worked as that album relaunched them as a big live act.

Apparently not, unfortunately, as it says here that it wasn't recorded at the time, but retained for possible future use alongside other unreleased songs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Takes_a_Tumble

[PaulTMA]

Go Kart Mozart and Mozart Estate both recorded 'Relative Poverty' on consecutive albums.

[markburgle]

The Fall - the "Life Just Bounces"s

[Deskbound Cunt]

Whitesnake's one ace tune 'Here I Go Again' was originally on their 1982 album Saint & Sinnera then rerecorded for their self titles 1987 album. A top 40 smasharoony in the UK charts both times as well.

I'd post the videos but they contain David Coverdale.

[Spiteface]

Gren Day done Welcome To Paradise twice.

They had a crack at re-recording a few other old songs for Dookie as well, "Christie Road" and "409 in your Coffeemaker" were considered for the album. Those 2 are on the recent 30th anniversary edition.

[Mister Six]

The Ting Tings were so fast-tracked that their first album recycles at least a couple of tracks from their first band, Dear Eskiimo. Can't be arsed looking up which ones though.

[jamiefairlie]

Original version of Talk Talk, recycled soon after in synth pop stylee.

[Brundle-Fly]

Costello also included a re-recorded version of the track "Unwanted Number" on his 2018 album "Look Now" (indeed, it was the lead track released to promote the album) but he originally wrote it for the soundtrack of the 1996 film Grace of My Heart, where it was performed by a girl group called For Real.

Costello also reworked 1983's Pills And Soap as Stick Out Your Tongue' on Wise Up!Ghost album in 2013. There is another Elv-self cover on that album, but I can't remember which song. Shipbuilding?

In 2010 on For The Ghosts Within album, Robert Wyatt covered his own much beloved cover version of Chic's At Last I Am Free what he recorded in 1982 for his Nothing Can Stop Us album.

[Gurke and Hare]

Seven Seas of Rhye was on Queen's first album as an instrumental, then fleshed out as a full song with words on their second.

[jamiefairlie]

New Order recorded Let's Go for Low Life but left it off in favour of a butchered monstrosity of The Perfect Kiss (their first single on an album, slippery slope).

They then released it as an instrumental on the Salvation soundtrack and again with completely new vocals and lyrics in some godforsaken compilation later.

Here's the original, still to be officially released, version they left off LL

[jamiefairlie]

The Cure reworked the original version of Plastic Passion 2978 into A Night Like this 1985

[jamiefairlie]

Stranglers demo of Strange Little Girl from 1974, eight years before it was a hit

[jamiefairlie]

Blondie's Heart of Glass from 74 or 75

[agentorange76]

Simple Minds have done it for years.

"Ghostdancing" is a re-hash of "I Travel" while "Let the children speak" is "Theme for great cities" with some crap lyrics thrown in.

In each case the re-harsh version is worse.

[non capisco]

They had a crack at re-recording a few other old songs for Dookie as well, "Christie Road" and "409 in your Coffeemaker" were considered for the album. Those 2 are on the recent 30th anniversary edition.

Didn't previously know this, cheers! Huge enduring soft spot for early Green Day and the Dookie era 409 In Your Coffeemaker sounds grrrrreat.
 

[studpuppet]

Lush released Thoughtforms on the 'Scar' mini album, and then put another more shimmery, Robin Guthrie-produced version on the 'Mad Love EP the following year.

Not content with that, they recorded another, slower version of Scarlet and shoved that on the 'Gala' compilation album (along with both versions of Thoughtforms!) for good measure.

[jamiefairlie]

Lush released Thoughtforms on the 'Scar' mini album, and then put another more shimmery, Robin Guthrie-produced version on the 'Mad Love EP the following year.

Not content with that, they recorded another, slower version of Scarlet and shoved that on the 'Gala' compilation album (along with both versions of Thoughtforms!) for good measure.

The original version of Scarlet was the first Lush song I heard and it made me fall in love with them.

[Tombola]

Queen's 1995 release Made in Heaven drew from unfinished recordings from as far back as 1980, and new versions of songs that had already been officially released in some form:

• Two Freddie Mercury solo tracks - 'I Was Born to Love You' and 'Made in Heaven', both significantly beefed up from the originals to sound like classic Queen
• 'Heaven for Everyone', originally by Roger Taylor's side project The Cross
• 'Too Much Love Will Kill You', originally released with Brian May on vocals on his solo album Back to the Light
• 'My Life Has Been Saved', an earlier version of which featured as the B-side to the single 'Scandal'
  

A fine swansong, given the circumstances.

And then there was the more questionable The Cosmos Rocks in 2008 with Paul Rodgers... which includes 'Say It's Not True', later re-recorded in 2013 for Roger Taylor's solo album Fun On Earth.

[buzby]

New Order recorded Let's Go for Low Life but left it off in favour of a butchered monstrosity of The Perfect Kiss (their first single on an album, slippery slope).

They then released it as an instrumental on the Salvation soundtrack and again with completely new vocals and lyrics in some godforsaken compilation later.

The version of Let's Go from 1994 (released as the B-side to the 1994 remix of 1963 to promote the 'Best Of' compilation, but it wasn't included on the album except on the US release) was an almost complete rerecording (along with 1963). Only Hook's bassline was reused from the original multitrack.

There is a another instrumental version recorded during the Low Life Sessions at Britannia Row and released on last year's Definitive Editon set for the album that is substantially different from the vocal demo version that has been knocking around for years (and closer to the live versions from 1985).. Instrumentally and production-wise, it's also more in keeping with the rest of Low Life than the vocal demo version, and you can hear the similarity to Sooner Than You Think, which is supposedly what kept it from going on the album.

There is another vocal demo of Let's Go that is puported to be from the Salvation! sessions at Pluto Studios but it sounds nothing like the other demos, or the instrumental released on the soundtrack album (which sounds more like the earlier vocal demo). The lyrics seem to be a half-way house between the earlier vocal demo and the 1994 rerecording.

[Johnny Textface]

The latest one from Lana Del Rey has a track from a previous album as it's final track (or some of it least). Not sure why. Even the album title is too long. Lass needs an editor.

[PaulTMA]

Many of these songs weren't on previous albums though.  If it was re-recorded b-sides and whatnot we'd be here longer than the Glinner threads

[PaulTMA]

Simple Minds have done it for years.

"Ghostdancing" is a re-hash of "I Travel" while "Let the children speak" is "Theme for great cities" with some crap lyrics thrown in.

In each case the re-harsh version is worse.

Especially hate Ghostdancing for how gash it is compared to I Travel.  Can't even remember Let The Children speak but it must be an admission of failure

[curiousoranges]

The lead single from The Who's last record was an old Pete Towshend solo album track with a fresh coat of paint.

[Jerden Cooke]

Dubstar's Elevator Song EP had a track on called The View From Here (although I first heard it on a magazine coverdisc) and I had a really emotional attachment to it.

The View From Here is also on Dubstar's second album but in a vastly inferior form, at least to me:

Original:

Shitbox:

[jamiefairlie]

Many of these songs weren't on previous albums though.  If it was re-recorded b-sides and whatnot we'd be here longer than the Glinner threads

Far better use of time so let's crack on I say!

[jamiefairlie]

The View From Here is also on Dubstar's second album but in a vastly inferior form, at least to me

Reworks are very rarely better in my opinion, something's lost from the spirit and freshness of the original when it's polished.

[greenman]

A lot of stuff in the first half of Spacemen 3's career during their "velvets drone" years, Walking With Jesus, Transparent Radiation, Rollercoster, etc.

[mrpupkin]

Meat Puppets had a new version of Lake of Fire as a hidden track on Too High To Die in 1994

[scarecrow]

Wreckless Eric rerecording Whole Wide World as a failed football anthem.

Edit - he also rerecorded his Len Bright Combo song Lureland for the Donovan of Trash album. Both versions are great, but the rerecording is jawcdroppingly good.