This came up in discussion as we’re thinkin of adding Hound Dog to our set list. Obviously the Big Mama Thornton and the Elvis cover are the two definitive versions. We all prefer the BMT lyrics but they are so much sung from the woman’s point of view about a philandering husband or boyfriend. The lyrics were written expressly for BMT by Lieber and Stoller. In comparison the Elvis lyrics are somewhat sanatiised presumably to remove sone innuendo and make things more acceptable to a white American audience. We will probably end up either doing the BMT version or taking bits from each. Just wondering how others bands that don’t have a female vocalist feel about this kind of thing.
I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is?
When I used to play solo stuff public I used to perform Bang Bang You Shot Me Down, which is a female perspective song, with a verse of Riders on the Storm in the middle as a mashup which is more male point of view. People liked it, nobody ever said "that's weird that you were singing about a man"
But, like Eric says, sometimes it’s just a case of not being able to sing the song at all, in any key that isn’t dropped to the point of making it sound awful.
https://youtu.be/ZzOrNq6jL0w
However the definitive version is sung by Minnie Driver in Golden Eye!