Some familiar hits began as earlier recordings; others grew from unreleased demos or were substantially rewritten. That difference matters: Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” followed Robert Hazard’s demo, Kylie Minogue’s “On a Night Like This” was recorded earlier by Pandora, and Madonna’s “Ray of Light” reworked an earlier song rather than simply covering it. Here is what the available accounts establish—and where the release history remains uncertain.
What counts as a cover?
A song can have several histories that are easy to collapse into one. An earlier commercially released recording is different from a songwriter’s unreleased demo; both differ from a later adaptation that changes lyrics, arrangement, or structure. The songwriter and the first performer may also be different people. The examples below identify those distinctions instead of treating every familiar hit as the same kind of cover.
Was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” a cover?
Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit followed Robert Hazard’s earlier writing and recording of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Mental Floss describes Hazard’s version as a demo that was never released, so it is misleading to describe Lauper’s recording without qualification as a cover of a commercially issued Hazard single. Official Charts says Lauper changed the lyrics, making her version more empowering. The chronology is therefore a songwriter’s earlier demo followed by Lauper’s released interpretation—not simply one released hit copied by another.
Who recorded “On a Night Like This” first?
Official Charts says Pandora recorded “On a Night Like This” first, in 1999, and also notes that Pandora’s version was released in her home country after Kylie Minogue’s hit. Anna Vissi is also associated with an earlier version in the song’s history. The key distinction is between recording first and releasing first: the available account identifies Pandora as the first to record it, but says Kylie’s hit came out before Pandora’s version in Pandora’s home country.
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Was Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy” a cover?
VH1 credits BC Jean with writing “If I Were a Boy” and describes a version that preceded Beyoncé’s recording. That establishes a songwriting and earlier-version history, but it does not, by itself, establish that BC Jean’s version was commercially released before Beyoncé’s. Without a verified release chronology, it is safer to say Beyoncé recorded a song written by BC Jean that had an earlier version than to state categorically that Beyoncé covered a previously released recording.
Is “Ray of Light” a cover of “Sepheryn”?
VH1 traces Madonna’s “Ray of Light” to “Sepheryn,” associated with Curtiss Maldoon, but explicitly cautions that the relationship is not a total cover. “Substantial adaptation” or “reworking” is a more precise description than calling Madonna’s track a straightforward cover. The distinction recognizes the earlier song’s role without implying the later recording is simply a duplicate.
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Why these song histories get confused
“Who sang it first?” can mean who wrote it, who recorded it earliest, or who released it publicly first. Those answers do not always point to the same person. A demo may predate a hit without ever having been sold or released; a recording can be made before another version yet reach listeners later; and an adaptation can retain an earlier song’s foundation while changing it substantially. For these four examples, those categories explain more than a simple cover-or-not label.
The exact-title 2013 blog list is not verified by these sources, so this article does not claim to reproduce or confirm its twenty entries. The evidence supports these specific song histories, not a definitive list of twenty.
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