Song: Make Your Own Kind of Music
Artist: Paloma Faith
Original Artist: Mama Cass Elliot
We have someone at the Skoda car company to thank for the revival of this Cass Elliot hit. Back in
In 2018, the car company decided to add the song to its advertisement for the new Karoq SUV.
To give the choice of song some context, for many years UK car drivers had sneered at
anyone who owned a Škoda. It was widely considered one of the worst of the worst.
Indeed, Paloma Faith said at one stage: “The reality of Škoda is it was the car people
took the piss out of you for having… That’s how they enticed me in (to record it), really.”
The video for the song shows Faith going through a series of flashbacks relating to the
problems she encountered at the start of her career. Someone really did say: “She can’t
sing.”
The Škoda-inspired song would become a top 30 hit in the UK. It first came to my
attention when I was working on a car fleet-related magazine. One of our reporters was
invited to attend an exclusive gig in Hackney, where Paloma performed the song for the
first time, along with hits from her then-new album, The Architect. Part of the performance is
shown in the video below.
I’ve always regarded it as “make up your own mind and don’t listen to others.”
message for car buyers. By the way, owning a Škoda can now be considered a prestige
buy. In recent years, it has won more awards than any other brand. Last year alone
In 2023, it picked up five What Car? Awards.
And what of the original? I’m a fan of Cass Elliot. I liked her in the Mamas and Papas
and in her solo career, where, in addition to recording hits such as Make Your Own Kind,
of music, she also recorded Dream a Little Dream of Me and It’s Getting Better. Friends
used to tease me that I liked her because she and I had something in common
frame-wise. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Cass’s version peaked at 36 on the Billboard Hot 100. Some of the lyrics were used in
the eulogy at her funeral in 1974.
