Dec 042021
 

That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.

I Fought the Law

In 1978, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones flew to San Francisco to record overdubs for the Clash’s second album, Give ’em Enough Rope. There, they heard the Bobby Fuller Four song “I Fought the Law” for the first time, on the studio jukebox. By the time they came back to England, they had heard it enough times to memorize it. They recorded the song and released in on an EP in the spring of 1979. Later that year it came out as a single in America, the Clash’s first. It appeared on their first American album as well, a rejiggered version of their UK debut two years before.

The story of a prisoner taking an oh-well attitude toward the turn his life took, “I Fought the Law” struck a chord with the Clash’s fans. It was a signature cover, both for the band and the song. And many many DJs who introduced this aggressive shrug of a song called it a cover of the top-ten hit by the Bobby Fuller Four.

Which it was.

But it wasn’t.
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Sep 212017
 
tom heyman baby my heart

Early rock-and-rollers The Bobby Fuller Four get covered a lot. Well, one of their songs does: “I Fought the Law.” To know much else, you’d have to be a superfan. And Tom Heyman is.

The longtime sideman for Chuck Prophet, John Doe, Alejandro Escovedo, and more returns to his pub-rock roots on upcoming solo album Show Business, Baby. In addition to a bunch of original tunes that sound like they could be 1960s deep cuts, a pair actually are: Dion’s “Daddy Rollin’ In Your Arms” and The Bobby Fuller Four’s “Baby My Heart.” Continue reading »