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- [00:00]
Chris Molanphy
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One Series. On our last episode we walked through the history of COVID songs on the charts from their beginnings as teams Pan Alley commerce with multiple versions of the same song charting virtually simultaneously to the Beatles and Dylan era of the singer songwriter who spawned other folks covers to the rap era and the creation of the sample heavy song interpolation, often a cover in disguise, we are now going to walk through the songs that scored a special chart distinction. Thanks to their covers, they each top the hot 100 twice. To be clear, I'm about to present 18 number one songs, nine pairs of originals and covers. To qualify for this list, both the original song and the COVID had to have reached number one on the Hot 100, not any other Billboard chart. Also, the nine cover versions, in other words, the second hit in each pair, are all traditional covers under the old fashioned definition, note for note and mostly word for word remakes of the original song. This is how chart historians track them. They don't count an interpolated reboot with a different song title as a cover. So to cite one song I mentioned just previously, even though Drake's 2021 hit Way Too Sexy reached number one too sexy for this chain, Too sexy for your game, Too sexy for this, and it heavily interpolated and even lyrically echoed another number one hit, Wright said. Fred's 1992 chart topper I'm Too Sexy, I'm too sexy for my shirt, Too sexy for my shirt. So sex it hurts. Neither I'm Too Sexy nor Way Too Sexy is on this list, jot said. You will hear a few covers that alter the instrumentation, the arrangement and even the rhythm of the original version. Some are more faithful covers than others. As long as the song went to number one twice by two different acts under the same title, it counts. So let's get started. I wish I could tell you the first pairing of original and cover involved a legendary pop classic, but I'll confess your Hit Parade host has a special distaste for this song rooted in my personal history. Even speaking objectively, it hasn't aged well. Go away little girl, go away. Just a week before we wrapped this episode, the music world lost Steve Lawrence, the traditional pop crooner who found fame singing Tin Pan Alley and Brill building compositions, often with his wife Edie gourmet Lawrence was 88. I don't want to speak ill of the deceased, so let's just say that Lawrence's only Hot 100 number one hit, go away Little Girl, wasn't anybody's finest hour, including its songwriters, the legendary composers and then spouses Carole King and Jerry Gotham. It's hurting me more each minute that you delay. The problem is right there in the title, Go Away Little Girl. It's sexist, demeaning and sex negative. The lyric accuses a young woman of being a foul temptress just for existence, and the melody is pleasant but cloying nonetheless. In the pop netherworld of January 1963, a year before Beatlemania broke, Steve Lawrence's Go Away Little Girl topped the Hot 100 for two weeks. And then eight years later, like a bad penny, it was back. Remember I was saying earlier that covers were an easy way to get 70s teen idols like Sean Cassidy to the top of the charts? That's exactly what happened in 1971 as Mormon family supergroup the Osmonds were breaking on the radio and the promotional machine singled out 13 year old Donny Osmond for Tiger Beat style fame. When Donnie's squeaky voiced re recording of Go Away Little Girl topped the Hot 100 in September of 71, the simpering song became the first in the chart's history to reach number one twice. As I revealed at the end of our Spirit of 71 episode of hit podcast Parade, Donny Osmond's Go Away Little Girl was number one the week I was born. A cruel irony for a lifelong chart nerd. However glad I am that I was born under a unique Billboard chart record. I'd give anything to trade Donnie's hit for Paul and Linda McCartney's one week earlier number one Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey or Aretha Franklin's Spanish Harlem, which peaked at number two that week. But that is my cross to bear. The next repeat number one didn't come for another two and a half years, a 1974 chart topper that covered a 1962 chart topper. And strangely enough, it was another song penned by Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
- [06:38]
Guest or Co-host
Everybody's doing a brand new dance now.
- [06:43]
Chris Molanphy
When King and Gotham wrote the Locomotion at the height of the early 60s instructional dance record craze that gave us the twist they wanted. Dee Dee Sharp, who'd already scored a dance craze hit with Mashed Potato, time to sing it. After Sharp said no to the Locomotion, Carol and Jerry instead recorded the song with their 17 year old babysitter Eva Boyd on vocals, re dubbed Little Eva, the teens take on the Locomotion topped of the Hot 100 in August 1962. A dozen years later, the song may have no longer been a brand new dance now, but it was given a movie much heavier beat by Homer Simpson's favorite rock band, Flint Michigan's own Grand Funk Railroad. By 1974, the boogie rock band had redubbed themselves simply Grand Funk and they were in the middle of a string of top 10 hits like we're an American Band and Walk Like a Man, produced by the eclectic Todd Rundgren. Grand Funk were at such an imperial peak in their career, virtually anything they released stood a good chance of topping the charts on American Top 40. In May 1974, Casey Kasem counted it down.
- [08:23]
Casey Kasem
Well, now a brand new number one song which hit number one before by a different artist. Now this has happened only one other time during the past 19 years when Donny Osmond hit number one in 1971 with Go Away Little Girl, which Steve Lawrence had done eight years before. Now another recording act makes it to number one with a song that Little Eva scored with back in 1962. Here it is, the new best selling single of the week, highballing into the number one position. Grand Funk and the Locomotion Everybody's doing.
- [08:57]
Chris Molanphy
A brand new dance now by the way, the Locomotion is such an infectious song. This wasn't the last big cover version. Fourteen years later, Australian pop queen Kylie Minogue scored her first US top 10 hit with her take on Goffin and King's dance craze. Kylie's the Locomotion reached number three in 1988. It's still her highest charting hit here.
- [09:28]
Guest or Co-host
Everybody's doing a brand new dance night.
- [09:34]
Chris Molanphy
But I digress. The third double topper came less than a year after Grand Funk's Locomotion. And several things were similar. It was a group at the height of its imperial hit making phase, covering a ditty from the early 60s girl group era. This time the original was by the Marvelettes. In December 1961, please Mr. Postman made pop history when it topped the Hot 100. It became the Motown Recording Company's first number one on Motown subsidiary Tamla Records after Michigan quartet the Marvelettes took it to number one. Several acts had a go at please Mr. Postman, including famously the Beatles. But the act that took it back to number one was the Carpenters stock Whoa. Yes.
- [10:37]
Guest or Co-host
Wait a minute Mr. Postman. Wait, wait.
- [10:41]
Chris Molanphy
By early 1975, the Easy Listening brother sister duo of Richard and Karen Carpenter were on their own hot streak, coming off such top tens as Superstar, Goodbye to Love, Yesterday Once More and the number one Top of the World. Frankly, the Carpenter's cover of the Marvelettes pleading hit is not one of the duo's better remembered hits. In his Stereo Gum column, the Number Ones Tom Bryan aptly calls the Carpenter's cover quote pure numbing airlessness. But it was a reflection of two things that were hot in 1975 the Carpenters and Baby Boomer nostalgia. We'll be back momentarily. After the back to back success of the Locomotion in 74 and Please Mr. Postman in 75. The Hot 100 didn't produce another double topping number one hit for more than a decade. But then in the mid-80s there were three in quick succession, all of them modernizing the rhythm of their respective original hit. The first of this 80s flurry, the fourth double number one in Hot 100 history, found a British dance pop trio covering a group of late 60s Dutch garage rockers. The shocking blues Venus was in a way already a cover or at the very least an interpolation. Songwriter Robbie Van Leeuwen borrowed the melody from folk trio the Big Three's arrangement of oh Susanna. But the co ed Dutch quartet fronted by singer Nariska Veres turned Venus into a groovy dance rocker and a hippie era smash, reaching number one on the Hot 100 in February 1970, A decade and a half after the shocking blue girl group group threesome Banana Rama regularly covered Venus in their sets and had the idea of turning Venus into a high energy club song. To make that happen they enlisted another trio British hit making production team Stock Aitken Waterman, who by the way also produced Kylie Minogue's cover of the Locomotion. The result was a smash. Released just in the summer of 86. Banana Rama's Venus hit the top 10 in their British homeland and number one in America. The first US chart topper for Stock Aiken Waterman, who would go on to produce Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give youe Up. As for Bananarama, among their handful of US hits, Venus was their only number one, but it remains a staple of 80s classic hits radio.
- [14:17]
Guest or Co-host
Yeah baby, she's got it.
- [14:20]
Chris Molanphy
Just six months later, another double number one joined the pantheon and the original song this cover drew upon was a stone classic. Lean On Me practically became a standard the moment Bill Withers wrote and recorded it. A cross between a family sing along and a gospel hymn, Lean On Me has served for generations as a song of friendship, devotion and support from betrothed couples to recovering addicts. It was also, in its day, a huge hit, spending three weeks atop the Hot 100 in the summer of 1972. Turns out Bill Withers melody is so sturdy it could withstand a radical reinterpretation, which is what the Sacramento, CA R&B dance troupe Club Nouveau did with it 15 years later. Club Nouveau's tape blended the vibe of the then new R B sub genre, New Jack swing and the Washington D.C. funk style known as Go Go. The arrangement is very dated to the mid-80s, but the song does not quit. Club Nouveau took Lean On Me back to number one in March of 1987, making the song the fifth double chart topper in Hot 100 history. The sixth came less than three months later when another indelible pop classic was taken back to number one. In keeping with Little Eva and the Marvelettes, the original was by another 60s girl group. Only this was no mere girl group. They were the top Motown act of their era. You might say they were supreme. Among the staggering dozen number ones the supremes scored between 1964 and 1969, you keep me hangin on was the eighth topping the Hot 100 in the fall of 66. Like most of the Diana Ross fronted group's peak hits, it was the work of the legendary Motown songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. And arguably this song of romantic desperation and confusion might be the Supreme's most adaptable hit. It was covered almost instantly in 1967 by the psychedelic blues rock band Vanilla Fudge. They took their hypnotically lugubrious version of you Keep Me Hanging on to number six in 1970. 1968. Two decades later, the singer who finally took you Keep Me Hanging on back to number one was British new waiver Kim Wilde, who did To Hang in what Banana Rama had done the year before with Venus. The daughter of 50s British teen idol Marty Wilde, Kim Wilde became an 80s pop star in her own right by collaborating with her brother, producer Ricky Wilde. Famed in the early MTV era for the hit kids in America, Kim had never cracked the top 20 in the US before she and her brother remade you Keep Me Hanging on as high energy dance pop. When Wilde's cover reached number one in June 1987, she reset the record for the longest gap between an original number one and a number one remake. 21 years after the Supremes hit. That record would hold for another four and a half years before another 1966 number one was taken back to the Hot 100 by a histrionic belter. The song he was covering was an inarguable classic. Like Lean on Me. Percy Sledge's When a Man Loves a Woman sounded like a standard from the moment it emerged. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the site of numerous R B classics, the power of country soul pioneer Percy Sledge's performance is its air of abject desperation. It's a plea more than appeal to love. And the 1991 cover it leaned into the desperation. Or at least it sounded desperate. Michael Bolton, a hard rock frontman who transformed himself into a blue eyed soul screamer in the late 80s, was at his imperial peak in 1991, scaling both the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts with his brand of melodramatic pop and Be like Grand Funk in 1974 or the Carpenters in 1975. Bolton was so huge in the early 90s, his voice on a familiar song was primed to top the charts. So when the man later called by a character in the movie Office Space a quote no talent ass clown wrapped his pipes around Percy Sledge's classic, he took it all the way to number one. The eighth double number one kept up the 90s theme of athletic vocalists taking an R and B classic and kicking it up a notch. Fun chart fact in 1970 the Jackson 5 were the first act to launch their career with four straight number one singles, I want you back, ABC, the Love you save and the fourth and biggest hit of all, the ballad I'll Be There, which spent a full month at number one. I'll Be There was the song that fully displayed the vocal versatility of a pre teen Michael Jackson. The Jackson 5's chart record stood for more than 20 years before they were beaten by vocal diva Mariah Carey, who kicked off her career in 1990, 90 and 91 with five straight number ones, Vision of Love, Love Takes Time, Someday, I Don't wanna Cry and Emotions. So when Carrie agreed to play MTV's live performance show Unplugged toward the end of that run, perhaps it was appropriate that she sang one of the Jackson 5's career launching smashes. Carrie's melismatic gospel inflected cover of I'll Be There featuring guest vocals by Trey Lorenz, topped the Hot 100 in June of 1992, making it the sixth of Carrie's record setting catalog of number ones. She has 19 total, the most of any soloist and second only to the Beatles. Yet again, a cover that took a song back to number one was A flex by a star at the apex of a career. In Mariah's case, it wasn't even the only apex. The last of the nine double chart toppers came after the turn of the the millennium. And it was one last display of vocal firepower. Of course, since the original 1975 hit involved singer extraordinaire Patti LaBelle, the song was never a slouch in the vocals department. We talked about Lady Marmalade by the Patty fronted trio labelle in our R B Queens episode of Hit Parade. The song was actually a cover in the first place, originally recorded by an obscure band called the Eleventh Hour. LaBelle made it more authentic by recording this song about sex workers in the French Quarter of New Orleans in New Orleans itself, with legendary NOLA producer Alex Fallen Toussaint. The result? A Hot 100 chart topper in March of 75. We also talked about the remake of Lady Marmalade in our pink episode of hit Parade. The 2001 reboot recorded for the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge was a four diva vocal vocal showdown between Christina Aguilera, Pink Maya and rapper Lil Kim. Where's all my soul sisters? Let me hear your flow sisters hey.
- [25:06]
Guest or Co-host
Sister go sister soul sister flow.
- [25:10]
Chris Molanphy
Here's an intriguing chart footnote. When this version of lady marmalade reached number one in June of 2001, not only did it become vulnerable last cover song to bring a hit back to number one a second time, as of this year, it remains the last traditional cover period to top the Hot 100 in the 23 years since the closest a straight cover came to topping the chart was Luke Combs aforementioned retake on Tracy Chapman's fast car, which peaked at a frustrating number two last summer. So whatever you think of the 2001 marmalade as a recording, it's chart historic in more ways than one. We'll be right back. What conclusions can we draw from that list of double number ones? In more than half the cases, the COVID reaching the top had to do more with the act's fame than the cover's quality. Donny Osmond, Grand Funk, the Carpenters, Michael Bolton and even Mariah Carey were all at an imperial high point. And speaking of quality, the fact is few of these smash covers improved on the original recording. Earlier I mentioned my friend and colleague Tom Bryan and his long running Stereo Gum blog series the Number Ones in which Tom has been chronicling and rating every number one song in Hot 100 history. I checked his ratings on all 18 of these songs and while my opinion doesn't always align with Tom's, his ratings are a valid gauge of the song's quality. In every pair but two, Tom rates the COVID lower than the original. The exceptions, in case you're curious, are Venus, where Tom rates the shocking blue original A7 and banana Rama's cover slightly higher at 8, and go away Little Girl, where Tom gives both versions the same abysmal and totally correct rating A1. So not a great track record for covers that follow an original to number one. But what if we produced a list of covers that improved upon not only the chart performance of the original, but arguably also the quality? Before we close this episode, I offer my own humble subjective list. First, a quick shout out to three great covers that improved on their source material but did not peak higher on the Hot 100. And third place, I offer Eminem's Stan Featuring Dido, a hit that heavily samples and virtually covers Dido's soft pop hit thank you. Dido's single hit number three. Eminem's harrowing and brilliant story song Stan, which invented a now common term for a rabid fan, only reached number 51 in 2000. In second place, I want to give a shout out to Stevie Wonder's awesomely funky cover of the Beatles. We can work it out. The Fab Four Original was a number one hit in 1966. Five years later, Stevie's Jam topped out at number 13. Finally, an extra huge shout out to one of the greatest covers period of all time, Ike and Tina Turner's complete reinvention of Credence Clearwater revivals, Proud Mary. Listen to the story. The COVID where Tina starts out nice and easy and winds up nice and rough peaked at number four, very nearly matching CCR's Proud Mary, which famously peaked at number two. Okay, those are the chart underperformers. What about the over performers? I'll give you a top five. In fifth place. One of my favorite hip hop interpolations came from Toronto's own rap deity Aubrey Graham, AKA Drake. I am admittedly only a moderate Drake fan, but I do get a huge kick out of his 2015 hit turned meme hotline Bling, which creatively reupholsters this moody 1972 banger from American soul singer Tim Jimmy Thomas. Why Can't We Live Together, which has been sampled dozens of times, was actually a big hit in its day, peaking at number three on the Hot 100 in early 1973. Drake's remake maintains Timmy Thomas's spooky vibe, but adds a new melodic hook of its own. Fueled by a plethora of memes that remixed Drizzy's colorful hotline Bling music video, Drake took his reboot to number two in 2015, improving, if only slightly, on Thomas's chart performance. In fourth place on my personal top five covers list, I present a song that was rebooted multiple times. And the last hit version was maybe the best. When Pet Shop Boys covered Always on my mind in 1987, it was for a British TV special commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. That's how lead pet Shop boy Neil Tennant had the song cataloged in his head. The Elvis version was only a minor US hit, but it reached the UK top 10 in 1972. Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have. A decade later, country legend Willie Nelson crossed over in a major way with his Always on My Mind. Willie's version topped the country chart and hit number five on the Hot 100. You were always on my mind.
- [32:59]
Casey Kasem
You were always on my mind.
- [33:04]
Chris Molanphy
As indelible as Nelson's version is, I give the edge to the Pet Shop Boys delirious synth pop version, which also edged out Willie on the charts. In 1988, the Boys Always on My Mind reached number four. In third place, I gotta give it up for one of pop's greatest compositions, which spawned an equally legendary vocal performance.
- [33:37]
Guest or Co-host
If I should stay, I would only be in you. Wait.
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Chris Molanphy
Dolly Parton so cherished I will always love you, she not only wouldn't let Elvis Presley record it and get a piece of its songwriting royalties, she also recorded it herself twice, and both versions were country number ones. The original I will always love you topped the country list in 1974. And a re recording Dolly did in 1982 for the soundtrack of her movie the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas also topped the hot country chart. The second version even reached number 53 on the Hot 100.
- [34:41]
Guest or Co-host
Always love you.
- [34:45]
Chris Molanphy
But the now immortal version was the one Whitney Houston did for her own movie star turn in 1992's The Bodyguard, a cover that her co star Kevin Costner proposed of a song he thought she could do a good job with. That was pretty smart advice.
- [35:08]
Guest or Co-host
And I. Will always love you.
- [35:18]
Chris Molanphy
As we have noted several times on hit parade, Houston's titanic take on I Will Always Love you spent 14 weeks at number one on the Hot 100, then a record, and it was the number one song of 1993. In second place on My list is a song that seemed to be great no matter who at Motown was singing it, and three legendary acts took it on. I Heard it through the Grapevine was first recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in 1966. Then Marvin Gaye tried it more on him in a moment. But the third recording was the first to be issued as a single. It was by Gladys Knight and the Pips during their brief stint on the Motown label. The pip's rip roaring recording hit number two on the Hot 100 in late 1967. In any other universe, Knight's version of Grapevine would be the benchmark. But then a year later, Marvin Gaye's sinuous, sinister I Heard it through the Grapevine was finally released. Motown saved the best for last. It's hard to say which version of Grapevine counts as the original and which the COVID given the mixed up recording and release history. But on the charts, Gladys Knight's number two hit was outperformed by Marvin Gayes. His Grapevine became a seven week number one and is enshrined as one of soul music's eminent performances. In fact, the only soul classic I like even better is the song that often tops lists of the greatest covers of all time. A bit like Girls Just Want to have Fun. It is remarkable to consider that this feminist anthem was first written and recorded by a man. And like Trent Reznor, after hearing Johnny Cash's Hurt, that man relinquished ownership of the song after he heard the COVID Which is saying something because his original version was pretty great to begin with. Otis Redding wrote Respect and recorded it in Muscle shoals studio in 1965. As Redding conceived it, the song was about a man needing respect from his partner when he gets home from work, earning money and enduring life's daily indignities. Redding's version really connected with audiences. At the height of of the civil rights movement, it went top five on Billboard's R B chart and even cracked the pop top 40, only Redding's second single ever to do so, reaching number 35 on the Hot 100. Among the people who loved Respect was Aretha Franklin, who covered covered it live long before she recorded it in the studio. When Franklin signed to Atlantic Records in 1966, she proposed including respect on her Atlantic debut LP. The label's president, Jerry Wexler, agreed, so long as Aretha could make her version of Respect distinct from Redding's original. Franklin's manager told Wexler, quote, oh, you don't gotta worry about that. She changes it up alright. Stereogum's Tom Bryan writes, quote, if Otis Redding's Respect was a plea Aretha Franklin's Respect is a demand. Franklin sings about earning her own money but demanding props from her man when she gets home. Whole chunks of the song's arrangement that weren't in the original were conceived by Aretha, including spelling out R E S, P E C T and the famous Socket to me chant. If all Aretha Franklin did was record Respect this way, it would already be one of the greatest, most transformative covers ever. But the public got it right too. Franklin's Respect spent two weeks at number one on the Hot 108 weeks atop the R B chart. It is, you might say, the ideal cover because it honored the original composition and improved on it in every way, commercially, artistically and culturally. It shows what a cover can be, a true reinvention. Perhaps we should give the last word to Otis Redding, who lived only six more months after respect went to number one, but before he passed gave propers to Aretha at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival. Live on stage, Redding uttered one of the most respectful lines a creator has ever said about the artist who covered him. Quote this song is a song that a girl took away from me, a good friend of mine. This girl, she just took this song. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melancholy. That's me. My producer this month is Olivia Briley, and we had production help from Kevin Bendis. Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade the Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to Slate plus members. In our latest Bridge episode, I talked to my Slate colleague Carl Wilson about his take on cover songs and where they are headed in the age of sampling. To sign up for Slate plus and hear not only the Bridge but all our shows the day they drop, visit slate.com hitparadeplus Derek John is Executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com you can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanfi you and guess what?
- [43:06]
Guest or Co-host
So is my money all I want you to do for me Give it to me when you get with me just.