cross genre shenanigans

It’s funny  how one post leads to another around here.
Finding the Lorna Bennet version of Breakfast In Bed on Youtube, that I shared last time brought a couple of things to mind. I hadn’t heard it before, but it’s obvious that the UB40/Chrissie Hynde version of the song was a cover of Lorna, not Dusty, because they repeat Lorna’s mishearing of the original lyrics. Dusty’s “a kiss or three” becomes “kisses for me” when Lorna sings the song. Where Dusty ends the chorus:
“Breakfast in Bed
Nothing Need be Said,” then ad libs “Aint no need.”

Lorna gives us:
“Breakfast in bed
Love can make you see
Hang on me.”

Put it down to Dusty’s intentionally sleepy diction.  

You’d often get that with a reggae cover version of an American or British pop song – I suppose it comes of learning the song from the record not the published sheet music, and you’d to hear those kinds of error in the lyrics when Britsh beat groups covered American R & B songs.   -
For example on the orignal of Shout – The Isley Brothers sing:
“Now that you’re grown up, old enough to know,
You wanna leave me, you wanna let me go.”
On Lulu’s version (and to this very day) she sings: “You wanna leave me, you wanna love me so,” which doesn’t make an awful lot of sense. Somewhere, this very night, maybe right this second, Lulu is still getting the words of Shout wrong after forty years.
On Mod classic ”I’ll Keep On Holding On” by The Action  you’ll hear a little bit of vocal interplay that, I think, goes:

“Waiting…
Oh, Yeah.
Watching…
Shoulder.
Looking for a chance….
A Chance to make you mine.”

That makes so little sense that later in the song lead singer Reg King, sings the lines:

“I’ll be waiting and watching….
I’ll be looking over my shoulder….”

On the Marvelettes original version, Wanda Young doesn’t sing ’shoulder’ at all, of course. She’s singing  ’Sho’ nuff,’ which was probably unfamiliar enough a phrase to confuse a bunch Londoners in the mid-sxities.
Of course I might be mis-hearing some of these myself.

Anyway I like a good cross genre cover and so here are three groovy soul versions of rock classics for your enjoyment.

Lou Rawls: For What It’s Worth

The Isley Brothers: Love the One You’re With

Spanky Wilson: Sunshine of Your Love

Now because you’ve been good and read all the way to the end, here’s the flip side of that Lorna Bennet single, courtesy of mrrk on Youtube - a bit of proto-dub  madness that they called Skank in Bed – featuring Scotty. I’d've called it Toast for Breakfast, but what do I know?