10 Rock Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers

By the time that David Bowie conceived of the Ziggy Stardust character, he didn't really need to fill his set out with covers night after night. I mean, when you have written songs like Changes and Five Years, the entire stage concept pretty much writes itself. That being said, Ziggy had to be introduced to rock and roll sooner or later, and he eventually found it in the blues.

Towards the midpoint of Bowie's first rock opera, It Ain't Easy is a nice sleazy bit of rock and roll for the public to latch onto. Instead of being a Bowie creation though, this is actually an older bluesy tune written by Rod Davies. Being readapted for Bowie's work, the real magic comes in once the Spiders From Mars got ahold of the track. Given that these songs can get meandering pretty quickly, the immediacy of Mick Ronson's guitar gives you the real excitement needed to drive this song home.

Then again, the main focus has to be Bowie himself, who's theatrical way of singing is exactly the kind of off-kilter delivery that made so many people fall in love with him back in the early '70s. While this might not have been the song that made Bowie a star, it did show that things were moving in the right direction.