Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/07/b-sides-that-were-more-popular-than-their-a-sides.html
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5 Likes
God Only Knows is a fantastic song… Didn’t realize it was a B-side!
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I gave up scrolling through the whole list, but seeing the Creedence track “Lodi” reminds me that when I first heard that I was sure the refrain was “oh lord, suckin’ an old diaphragm”.
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There is a city of Lodi in New Jersey. It is not to far from NYC. For 40 years I thought they meant there.
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This was a great one. Made me a Vince Guaraldi fan for life, and Ralph Gleason’s documentary on it was a look into the way a tiny boutique record company became a giant. Not sure if it’s in that list.
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In the summer and fall of 1992 I was in the process of coming out, volunteering to defend our city’s abortion clinics from the christian terrorists of “Operation Rescue” and trying to survive my last year of high school. I don’t know if it’s the best, or even my fave on the list, but the lyric “I just flipped off President George” 
(referring to Bush the elder) has stuck with me for almost 30 years. Now I’m going to Dizz Knee Land (after there’s a functioning vaccine):
Thanks Dada 
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This was the b-side to the Immigrant Song. I like this more.
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It’s an interesting idea, but easily half the examples are simply not true. “But three decades later, a cover of the B-side charted at #21 in Lithuania!”
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Probably my favorite Pearl Jam song, and incomprehensible even by the standards of a band famous for incomprehensibility. “Make me fries.”
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And yet somehow this B-side didn’t become a hit, despite its own prediction.
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Going back to the days of 78s, Artie Shaw’s version of Begin the Beguine was issued as a B-side. The studio didn’t even want them to do it. Became one of the biggest sellers of the entire swing band era.
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One of my favourite B- Sides is from George Clinton. Buried in the midst of lackluster remixes for the A-Side, “Paint the White House Black”, is a little gem called “Booty”. What makes this even more special to me is that the song was reworked on a later album, and not half as funky. But good luck finding the B- Side version online.
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I believe Surfer Joe was originally the A side, and Wipeout was the B side for the Surfaris.
La Bamba was the B side of “Donna”
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Ruby Tuesday is something other than a horrible chain restaurant?
3 Likes
Time to play B-sides…
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Let’s ask Tina for her opinion
“Ice Ice Baby” was the B side to Vanilla Ice’s cover of “Play that Funky Music”.
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Yeah, this list has some really odd choices. For example, it lists Stevie Nick’s “Edge of Seventeen” as a great B-Side, which I would agree with except the B-Side was the live version and the A-Side was the studio version of the same song.
There is a whole lot of “not charted” on that list.
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There is a Lodi in Ohio. Same.
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