"I Love Rock and Roll" (Joan Jett & The Blackhearts)

I'll never forget seeing the video for "I Love Rock and Roll" for the first time as a kid.  I thought Joan Jett was the coolest person on earth.  Although, to be honest, my 4-year-old brain couldn't process that she was not, in fact, the same person as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days.  (In hindsight, I think it was pretty astute of a 4-year-old to make a connection between Jett and Suzi Quatro.)
Anyway, for years, I never realized the song was a cover because Jett completely owns the song.  But the original version was written/performed by the British band Arrows, a short-lived pop-rock band that had its own television show on Britain's ITV network from 1976-1977.  Story goes, Jett was on tour in the UK with her original band, The Runaways, and happened to catch Arrows performing its 1975 single "I Love Rock and Roll" on the program.  She immediately liked the song and proposed that The Runaways cover it.
Her bandmates' response: go soak your head.
So she kept the song in her back pocket till she went solo.
Her first—and somewhat rare—version was recorded in 1979 with what was left of The Sex Pistols (Steve Jones on guitar and Paul Cook on drums).  Then, after the success of her first solo album, Joan Jett/Bad Reputation, and landing a record distribution deal with Boardwalk Records for her own label, Blackheart Records, she re-recorded the song in 1981 with The Blackhearts and turned it into a massive hit.
(Sort of an interesting sidebar: in poking around the web, looking for stuff about "I Love Rock and Roll's" original performer, I found an interview with former Arrows frontman/songwriter, Alan Merrill.  I'd never given much thought to song's lyrics before, but Merrill comments that everyone just assumes that the song's protagonist is the one singing I love rock and roll / So put another dime in the jukebox, baby to the love interest.  But that's not the case.  It's really a song within a song: the verses are the guy and girl checking each other out, whereas the chorus is the hit song they're listening to on the jukebox.)