The other day I was listening to an old Mark Mothersbaugh interview from the ‘80s (well, technically it was a “Booji Boy” interview, but anyway) and at one point, in talking about the Krautrock band Neu!, he threw a bit of shade at David Bowie, saying Bowie had ripped off Neu! for a song he produced for Iggy Pop. This peaked my interest so I quickly googled “Bowie, Iggy, Neu!” and the first search result was the wikipedia page for Iggy’s “Funtime.”  According to that wikipedia post, “Funtime” bears marked similarities to “Lila Engel” by Neu! An A/B comparison of the two didn’t really raise any eyebrows on my end. I found “Funtime” to possibly be “in the spirit of” “Lila Engel,” but not an out-and-out bite.

Anyway, that doesn’t really have much to do with today’s Dangerous Minds post other than setting up the fact that I was reading this wikipedia page on “Funtime” and the thing I found most interesting about that entry was how often the song had been covered by other artists.

I was previously unaware of any other versions of the track, and very quickly I found several. And really, they’re all pretty great in their own way—definitely worth sharing.

First up, check out The Cars’ cover of the tune. This was cut during the Shake It Up sessions with Ben Orr on vocals. According to the liner notes for Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology, Iggy was present at the recording session and complimented Orr’s vocal impersonation, telling him “you sound more like me than me.”

I hate to admit it, but I like this cover better than the original:
 

 
The Cars’ cover was later stripped of Orr’s vocals and re-sung by fashion model Bebe Buell—this version was included on her Covers Girl EP. This is also a great version:
 

 
Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy did a version on his 1988 solo album Love Hysteria He may be doing a better Iggy impression than Orr:
 

 
R.E.M. did a rather mediocre version that’s really only interesting because it’s R.E.M. It appeared as a B-side to their 1989 single “Get Up.”
 

 
Blondie has performed a cover of it in their live sets for years, sometimes performing it as a medley with T.Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On).”
 

 
Boy George recorded a slick version of the song in 1995 on his album Cheapness and Beauty. This video is fucking GREAT. I had no idea Boy George became Marilyn Manson for a while in the ‘90s:
 

 
Pop punk band Blanks 77 did a version for an Iggy Pop tribute album:
 

 
And, finally, here’s a band that was new to me, but this cover is pretty fantastic. Shad Shadows are performing this cover in 2015: