Bump and Grind, It's Good for Your Mind: Whitneypedia

Here's some shit you might not know.

Bruce Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the Ramones. Which is just awesome. But then he thought he'd go ahead and keep it. And record it. And crush it. Check out this kick ass 1980 version of it.

David Bowie offered Ian Hunter's band Mott the Hoople his song "All the Young Dudes." You know, geniuses like these two guys (and Prince) can do that, what with all the great spare tracks they have lying around. Here's the thing: he first offered them "Suffragette City," and they said, "No thanks, what else you got?" Cheeky little bastards. So they took his second option and made a Top 10 hit out of it. Bowie's unreal.

You can hear the Bowie influence on this, well, in part because you can hear Bowie on it. He sang backup.

You know who covered this tune in 1990? Legendary producer Bruce Dickinson. Well, actually, bad ass Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson. (He never produced, especially not "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" with Gene Frenkle.)

Anyway, Ian Hunter, Mott the Hoople's frontman, had a successful solo career you might know nothing about.

Or do you . . . not?

Perhaps you've heard the cheesy hair metal remake of this song that torched a bar it was so hot. Here's Ian Hunter's 1975 original.

He also was the original behind this song, which you might have heard co-opted by the Presidents of the USA and Drew Carey...

But wait! Hunter's "Cleveland Rocks" came out in 1979. But this song came out in 1977! What gives, dude? Which one is it???

Ian Hunter later said that the real song was the Cleveland version, and that the England version was to satisfy a record label who thought that Cleveland doesn't sell. (They may have had a point.)

Anyway, this next one doesn't have much to do with this theme, except that like Bowie and Hunter, Marc Bolan was a glam rock god. Gone before his time, but he squeezed some juicy stuff into his (2 weeks shy of) 30 years. As Bowie write and Hunter sang, "The television man is crazy / Saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks / Man I need a TV when I've got T. Rex."

There's little I can show you more brilliant and intriguing than this one. If I've aired it before, please forgive. Take one part T. Rex superstar freakazoid and add in the piano playing superstar for the ages and oh yeah a dash of primo mulleted Fab Four drumming. Make it super weird and also make it one of my favorite T. Rex tunes. (The Femmes did a nice cover in the '80s.) 

Hard not to watch.

You won't fool the children of the revolution, aka the gheorghies...

Now ya know.

Until the next time, listen well and learn a little "useless knowledge," as my father calls it.