B-side "Lady Love" Genre Pop Label Dunhill Records | Released September 1969 Length 2:25 | |
Writer(s) Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil |
"Make Your Own Kind of Music" is a pop song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, first recorded in 1968 by the New York City-based trio the Will-O-Bees (Janet Blossom, Steven Porter, and Robert Merchanthouse), who regularly performed Mann/Weil compositions. After Cass Elliot had a hit in the summer of 1969 with Mann/Weil's It's Getting Better, she recorded "Make Your Own Kind of Music" as the follow-up single, and her album Bubblegum, Lemonade, and... Something for Mama was re-released as Make Your Own Kind Of Music/It's Getting Better, the title cut having been added to the original track listing. However Elliot's Make Your Own Kind of Music single only just reached the Top 40 at #36 The similar chart impact of the follow-up single, another Mann/Weil composition entitled New World Coming, which reached #42, signaled Elliot's challenges in maintaining a profile as a current hitmaker, as the 1960s turned into the 1970s. The Cass Elliot track is in the key of E major.
Contents
Chart performance
Remixes
A remixed version of the Cass Elliot track was featured in the 1997 Dance compilation Dance Across The Universe (Part 1), which was released by Universal Records, along with a separate club-only promo which featured four different mixes (one of them dubbed "The Mama Cass Mix").
Other versions
In 1972, Barbra Streisand released "Make Your Own Kind of Music" as a single in a medley with "Sing", which became an Easy Listening hit (#28) but only reached #94 on the Billboard Hot 100. Streisand also recorded parts of the song as a medley with The World is a Concerto for Barbra Streisand...And Other Musical Instruments.
Others who have performed the song include: Bobby Sherman, Paul Westerberg, and Ste McCabe. Mary Roos recorded a German-language version entitled Sing nochmal dieses Lied in 1970. It can also be found in the movie Beautiful Thing.
Sparky & Foe released a popular happy hardcore version of the song, featuring vocals by Charm.