Who recorded it first

Blinded by the Light

Not an Earth Band original — a 1973 Bruce Springsteen song

Almost everyone takes ‘Blinded by the Light’ for a Manfred Mann’s Earth Band original, but the Earth Band’s 1976 version is a cover. The song was written and first recorded by Bruce Springsteen in 1973, on his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. for Columbia Records — a record that flopped. Three years later the Earth Band rebuilt it and took it to No. 1 in America, the only Springsteen composition ever to top that chart — and by another act.

The record

Who recorded it first

Original recording
Bruce Springsteen, 1973
Written by
Bruce Springsteen
First released
January 1973 (Columbia) — debut album, did not chart
Made famous by
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, 1976 (US No. 1)

How we traced it

The song was written by Bruce Springsteen and first recorded by him in 1973 for Columbia, as the opening track of his debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Wikipedia ↗.

Springsteen’s original made little impression — the album was a critical favourite but a commercial disappointment, and the single did not chart. At that point he was an unknown, not yet the arena figure he would become.

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered it on their 1976 album The Roaring Silence, and their version reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in February 1977 Wikipedia ↗. It remains the only Springsteen composition to top the American chart — which is exactly why the song is remembered as the Earth Band’s.

Wikipedia — the song’s full history
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Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is the cleanest kind of music misattribution: nothing about the Earth Band’s record is wrong or fake. The only error is believing they originated it — a 1976 cover mistaken for the source.

The beliefcover, not original

‘It’s an Earth Band song’

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s 1976 version is a cover. Bruce Springsteen wrote the song and recorded it first, three years earlier, in 1973 the history ↗.

The originalwrote it and recorded it first

Bruce Springsteen, 1973

Springsteen’s debut single failed to chart — which is exactly why the cover could eclipse it so completely. There was no famous original standing in the way, and in 1973 he was not yet famous himself.

The footnoteas songwriter, via a cover

Springsteen’s only US No. 1

The Earth Band’s recording is the only Springsteen composition ever to top the US Billboard Hot 100 — a No. 1 he earned as a writer while another act sang it. Authorship and performance are different credits, and here they belong to different acts.

Written and first recorded by Bruce Springsteen in 1973, and made famous — but not originated — by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1976 the record ↗.

Context

Why the cover ate the original

A cover eclipses its original most completely when the original never had its moment. Springsteen’s ‘Blinded by the Light’ sank on release in 1973; there was no hit record occupying the public’s memory of the song, so when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s version arrived it simply became the version, with nothing to displace.

The irony is doubled by fame’s timing. In 1973 Springsteen was an unknown; by the time the Earth Band’s cover topped the chart in 1977 he was rising fast — yet the one composition of his to reach US No. 1 did so under another act’s name. The song most listeners cannot identify as his turns out to be his most chart-successful piece of writing.

The two records, in order
  • Bruce Springsteen writes ‘Blinded by the Light’ and records it first (1973, Columbia).
  • It opens his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.; the single does not chart.
  • Manfred Mann’s Earth Band cover it on The Roaring Silence (August 1976).
  • The Earth Band’s reworked version reaches US No. 1 in February 1977.
  • It becomes the only Springsteen composition to top the US chart — and the original fades from public memory.
The one Springsteen composition to top the US chart did so in another act’s hands.

The writer and original recording artist

Bruce Springsteen

b. 1949 · American singer, songwriter and musician

Bruce Springsteen (b. 1949) both wrote ‘Blinded by the Light’ and recorded it first, as the opening track of his 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. for Columbia. The album won critics but few buyers, and the song passed almost unnoticed. It is a genuine irony that his one composition to reach US No. 1 did so in someone else’s hands, three years before he became a household name — so the song most people cannot place as his is, in fact, entirely his.

Popularly credited as the original

Manfred Mann's Earth Band

English rock band · formed 1971

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band — the progressive-rock group led by South African keyboardist Manfred Mann — released their cover of ‘Blinded by the Light’ in 1976, and it became so definitive that it eclipsed Springsteen’s original entirely. Their reworked arrangement reached No. 1 in America in early 1977; it is genuinely their record and genuinely a hit, and the only error is chronological, the assumption that a chart-topper must be where the song began. It began in 1973, on a debut that sank. The Earth Band’s version is also home to one of pop’s most famously misheard lines — a mondegreen so widespread it has its own folklore.