Who Sang It Best? by Rich Paschall
Last weekend we told you about A Popular Girl who has many songs written about her. This is not the Gloria you are singing in church. This is a someone that many songwriters have encountered over the years. Today we are picking just one of the songs and asking you to chose the best version.
In 1964 singer-songwriter Van Morrison’s group, Them, recorded a song about Gloria as the B side of the blues standard, “Baby, Please Don’t Go.” Failure of some rock radio stations to play the Van Morrison version of Gloria due to objection of one line (“She comes to my room”), meant the song did not climb very high on the Billboard Hot 100: 93 in 1965, 71 in 1966.
In December 1965 The Shadows of Knight, a Chicago area band, released their cover of Gloria and the song made it to number 10 in 1966. It was helped by rock radio giant Chicago’s WLS 890 AM. The band changed the offending lyric to “She calls out my name” and some stations found it a better alternative to the original. It is the version I remember best.
The Doors covered the song a number of times in concert and versions can be found on live albums. In the following lead singer Jim Morrison just seems to be making up a lot of it as they went along, which he probably was.
Scottish rock band Simple Minds put there own spin on the song, released in 2001.
There are a long list of artists who have performed and/or recorded this song, but I will just give you my vote for Chicago’s own, The Shadows of Knight.
Just because it is floating around the internet, we will also give you Bill Murray. No, he will not win any competition with this version. It is just for fun.
See also, “A Popular Girl”
Share this:
Categories: Entertainment, Music, Rich Paschall
Reblogged this on rjptalk and commented:
It’s time for a music break. You probably know this song, so sing along with one of the versions in this post. Be sure to click “View original post” at the bottom to head over to SERENDIPITY for five versions and pick your favorite.
LikeLike
Being Canadian I’d have to go with Bill Murray’s rendition. My goodness there were a lot of goes at this song.
Leslie
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are a dozen more on You Tube.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s no end to “Gloria” ….
Leslie 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
true
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s not a common name to my knowledge.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It used to be, in the ’30s and ’40s.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I only known one girl with that name…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is now that we have all these songs! I do not a a couple of Glorias too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Only know of one Rich…
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was a kid (late 70s, early 80s), every band, be they Prog, punk, new wave, folk, 100% acoustic,100% synth, rock, disco or whatever, did a version of this. Every. Band. All of them. The funny thing, listening to the videos is that I know the original version and am not familiar with The Shadows of the Knight version. The Cleveland radio station WMMS used to play the original all of the time during that period (late 70s, early 80s) and did not play TSOTK. All of those bands back then were riffing off of the original, so that is the one I like.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never heard the original back then. The pop stations here favored the local band.
LikeLiked by 1 person