People are only just learning one of Happy Mondays’ biggest hits is actually a cover that made history years before Bez and Shaun Ryder’s version.
The song, which has since been entered into the Guinness Book of World Records, was already a hit before Happy Mondays got to it more than 20 years later. The original, which released in May 1971, made it to number four in the UK charts and is still cited as one of the first songs to use a sample.
Sampling is the act of taking existing audio recordings and incorporating them into new compositions, as has been done by artists like Daft Punk, Kanye West, and James Brown.
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But the Happy Mondays’ cover of the hit track was a surprise to some fans who believed it was an original work. The song, which featured on their third studio album, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, was not written by the ‘Mondays as first thought. Ryder and Bez actually covered a song from John Kongos, giving them one of their biggest hits to date.
He’s Gonna Step on You Again, the song from Kongos’ self-titled album, sampled a tape loop of African drumming and made history for the Fly Records label. Happy Mondays’ Step On made it to number five in the charts and became the band’s biggest-selling single.
Fans of Happy Mondays are only just realising the work is a cover, with one stunned fan saying it has “twisted my melon man,” referring to the song’s iconic lyric. One wrote: “Just found out Step On by the Happy Mondays is a cover. That’s twisted my melon man!”
Another stunned listener wrote: “I was Today’s years old when I discovered that Happy Mondays Step On is a cover…” A third added: “What are songs that are covers that you didn’t know were covers? I ask because I just found out that Step On by Happy Mondays is a cover and I am very surprised… Did everyone know this?”
Others were left wondering what other Manchester-based bands had covered songs from history. One X user was stunned to realise Oasis had not written Live and Let Die or Cum On Feel the Noise.
They shared: “First time I heard Live And Let Die by Guns n Roses and Cum On Feel The Noize by Oasis I was unaware that Wings and Slade did them originally.”
It is not the first time the band covered Kongos’ work either. Step On had originally been intended as a single for the Rubáiyát: Elektra’s 40th Anniversary compilation album.
But the group liked their work on Step On so much they kept it for their third album, instead covering Kongos’ ‘Tokoloshe Man’ from the same album.