Play it again, in a manner of speaking

I just read a very funny social media post from a working musician about crowd requests, especially for ropey old tunes like Superstition and Brown Eyed Girl. One commenter suggested replacing a lesser known song of the same name for a well known one. The Lou Reed Wagon Wheel instead of the Old Crow Medicine show song, for instance. Anyone got any bangers hiding in the shadow of their more popular, similarly named cousins?

When someone requests Freebird, claim you heard Free as a Burd and play that mediocre recovered Beatles song instead

Stairway to heaven / neil sedaka

Atmosphere / Joy Division, Russ Abbott

I think the Joy Division one is reasonably well known

Somebody needs to write a new "Sex On Fire"

Crowd wants to hear Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" so you play the Christian hymn of that name, leaning heavily on Amy Grant's interpretation thereof

.

(not that the hymn is obscure, but it would hit differently)

Ditto "God Save the Queen".

xp how about Jobriath's 'Rock of Ages'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4PCYkgQ6CA

Prince covering harry styles “sign of the times” would probably be awesome

instead of the bride's aunt's request for Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" play U2's relatively forgotten 1982 single "A Celebration"

Instead of wedding requests for "I Will Survive", play Bad Brains "I and I Survive" instead

Ask for Satie’s Vexations at a wedding

instead of the bride's aunt's request for Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" play U2's relatively forgotten 1982 single "A Celebration"

a banger of the kind that they don’t make anymore.

UB40 - Higher Ground

I think Pere Ubu have done a bunch of these

"Play something from Thriller!"
"Absolutely — you want 'My Face Your Ass' or 'Your Fucking Sunny Day'?"

Is the most infamous version of this sort of thing the time Sinead O'Connor sang Bob Marley's "War" at a Bob Dylan tribute concert?

Michael Jackson's Heaven Can Wait instead of Maiden's

Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera" instead of the Lloyd-Webber debacle

I often play the Lyle Lovett song "Closing Time," and sometimes have to explain that it's not the song you're thinking of.

Also "You Belong to Me" (which goes "see the pyramids along the Nile," not "I know you belong to somebody new").

Also "Wonderful World" (which goes "Don't know much about history," not "I see trees of green").

Stairway to heaven / neil sedaka

Or Camper Van Beethoven's "Stairway to Heavan (sic)"

Or the o'jays