TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS: The Elvis Forum

Of course the original original is the one the composer recorded himself or asked to be recorded by befriended or hired musicians/singer(s) i.e. the demo.

Then the song gets recorded for commercial release.
Sometimes only 1 artist records and releases the song and this in general can be considered the original.

However, sometimes lots of artists record the same song within a short period of time.
Which version is then considered the original?
The one that gets released first?
The one that is recorded first?
The one that is recorded first but never got released (until perhaps recently on a retrospective on this artist/group)?

Sometimes a song gets recorded again and again in different styles.
For example Blue moon which can be heard as a ballad but also as a rock and roll song, like by The Marcels.
If Elvis recorded the song similar to a later recorded style, can that recording be regarded as the original? Or do you stick to the real original which was recorded in a (completely) different style?

The site I refer to seems to operate thus:

The 'original' is the earliest recording known, that has had a commercial release.

This would [normally] rule out 'demos'.

Sometimes, later recordings get released first, but it's the earlier recording which counts, as long as it is released at some point.

This means, of course, that a recording, at one time identified as the 'original', can lose its status later on if an earlier recording gets released.

So, Greensleeves is the original and of course it has original lyrics, therefore Stay Away uses an original melody, but lyrically it is in itself an original. Another example is Tender Feeling where the melody (off the top of my head here) is structurally the same as Shenandoah, so Shenandoah is only the original as far as the melody is concerned.

However, there is no original to say, Can't Help falling In Love as the melody is only based on Plaisir d'amour and not a straight copy as far as I remember.

And where do we stand regarding the My Sweet Lord / He's So Fine question?

My head hurts.

The Elvis version of the song Stay Away would be listed as the original, with a footnote that the tune goes back to the time of Henry VIII.

Here are some examples:

Cheers Colin, although some (not me) may argue that Stay Away is not an original.

In the case of an old tune with new lyrics it is always the question how far you must dig into history.

colonel snow

Love me Tender 's melody was taken from "Aura Lee".. (and an interesting fact is that the first few bars of "Love song Of The Year" are the beginning notes of LMT speeded up!).

In the case of "It's Now or Never" I would class that as the original, even though 'O Sole Mio' had been literally translated as "There's No Tomorrow" previously. Very interesting thread.