It's my live (1965)

Written by Roger Atkins & Carl D'Errico
First recording: Billy Carr 1965 Demo
First Published: The Animals 1965

First I want to say that it's good that there is a site and a book like "the Originals", when I read comments like:  "Bruce, who has only been making music since 1969, originally did a song that was released in 1965?" 

Take a look at: http://www.originals.be/en/ when you want to know more about the history of songs.

FROM WIKIPEDIA

"It's My Life" is a song written by Brill Building songwriters Roger Atkins and Carl D'Errico. The song was originally performed by British rock band The Animals, who released it as a single in October 1965 (see 1965 in music).

The song became a hit in several different countries and has since been recorded by multiple artists.

D'Errico, who wrote the music, and Atkins, who wrote the lyrics, were professional songwriters associated with the greater Brill Building scene in New York City. By 1965 they were working for Screen Gems Music, but had only found minor success at best.

"It's My Life" was written specifically for the Animals as their producer Mickie Most was soliciting material for the group's next recording sessions. (Other Animals hits to come out of this Brill Building call were "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" and "Don't Bring Me Down". It would become D'Errico and Atkins' best-known work.

The Animals' recording was propelled by a bass guitar riff from Chas Chandler, soon joined by an electric twelve-string guitar riff from Hilton Valentine; in the view of musicologist Walter Everett, the doubled line gave the song its strength. Alan Price's organ gave the record that sound that distinguished the Animals from other "British Invasion" groups, differing from Dave Clark Five's Dave Smith's through its darker timbre. Music writer Dave Marsh compared the dual part to a rock version of pointillism. Then lead singer Eric Burdon's low-pitched, gruff vocal entered with lyrics that author James E. Perrone thought rhetorically matched Burdon's origins from Tyneside in the working class North East England.

"It's My Life" was visually premiered on the US television show Hullabaloo in autumn 1965, where the group sang live vocals against canned music on a den-type set that featured attractive young women sticking their heads through holes in the wall, where normally animal heads would be mounted.

In Marsh's view, "It's My Life" was one of a wave of songs in 1965, by artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, that ushered in a new role for rock music as a vehicle for common perception and as a force for social consciousness. Writer Craig Werner sees the song as reflecting the desire on the part of both the Animals and their audience to define themselves apart from the community they came from. Writer Dave Thompson includes the song in his book 1000 Songs that Rock Your World, saying simply, "There is no angrier declaration of independence than this."

Later versions

During the mid-1970s Bruce Springsteen began performing "It's My Life" during his Born to Run tours. It was preceded by the first iteration of Springsteen's spoken narratives – characterized by music writer Robert Hilburn as "painfully intense" – about how he and his father never got along about anything (that would later manifest themselves in introductions to Springsteen's own songs "Independence Day" and "The River"). The tempo of the song itself was greatly slowed down, to the point where it bore little obvious resemblance to the Animals' original, and renditions could easily run over ten minutes overall in duration; lyrics were varied somewhat across almost every performance. No recording of Springsteen's rendition has ever been officially released, but they have appeared on bootlegs.

The song next cropped up as the closing part of ex-New York Dolls singer David Johansen's Animals medley from his 1982 live album Live It Up. It attracted album oriented rock airplay and considerable MTV video play at the time.
In 1986 American hard rock band Alcatrazz recorded the song on their last studio album Dangerous Games. It failed to chart.
In 1989, the New York hardcore band Madball released a freely inspired, one-minute-long rendition of this song, which became one of their anthems. It can be found in their debut EP Ball of Destruction and album Droppin' Many Suckers.
In 1992, Bon Jovi performed their own Animals medley for an MTV show later released on video as Keep the Faith: An Evening with Bon Jovi; they led off with "It's My Life". In 1995, they performed the medley live with Eric Burdon. (Bon Jovi's 2000 hit "It's My Life" is a different song).
In 1997, during a scene in Central Park in Disney's Jungle 2 Jungle, Tim Allen and Sam Huntington dance to a version sang by Dana Hutson of the group, Pele Juju.
Burdon performed the song live with Roseanne Barr on her The Roseanne Show in 2000


From comments from Roger Atkins and Carl D'Errico
In 1976 Springsteen promised the writers to record it  for a live album, but until now he didn't  and is it only on bootlegs.


Other recordings
The Animals          October 1965     
The Ad-Libs [germany]       1966     
The Eric Burdon Band        1974     
Shaun Cassidy                      1980  
David Johansen                   1982  
The Apollos                          1985     
Alcatrazz                               1986     
Madball                                 1992 
Bon Jovi (on DVD)               1992     
Calvin Russell                       1995     
The Bollock Brothers          1996
Dana Hutson                        1997     
Eric Burdon Brian Auger Band  1998             
The Flowerz                          1998     
The Woggles                        March 2004        
Chris Field                             2008   


Live versions 1975/1976 Bruce Springsteen and
i read on the net Iggy Pop.

But as said above: Billy Carr sang it first

Here the Animals al Hullabaloo in the US

Here a video of Bruce Springsteen 1978

This a more modern version from Dana Hutson

Here Bon Jovi


Here the recordings

You can get it if you want