The Not-Pop Jukebox

Thanks to javrsmith and his great input on my Cover Songs Rock! page I have a wacky treat that you folks can be thankful for today, should you need one. He pointed out that the Manfred Mann hit Blinded by the Light was a Bruce Springsteen cover song. You know what that mean: you get to hear them both.

I've never been a fan of Bruce Springsteen's performances and his original demonstrates exactly why. He sounds like he's got a mouth full of mashed potatoes when he's singing this one. He does, however, avoid the "douche" mispronunciation that made the Manfred Mann version so notorious. I threw in a little goofy thing from Lil Wayne and a bonus treat from The Roots titled Blinded by the Light (No Douche Here). I'm almost afraid to see what search terms bring people to this post, but you can't write about the song without noting the terrible sound of the chorus in the most famous version.

Regardless of any unrelated words that may have snuck into the cover version (it's "deuce", if you're curious), the lyrics are actually quite entertaining. Mr. Springsteen was having a good time playing with English when he wrote this one. Beware badly-labeled tracks, by the way. As far as I can tell, ELO, The Steve Miller Band, and Foreigner never recorded this one or, if they did, they sound exactly like Manfred Mann's Earth Band.