For the first ten years of his career, maverick Baltimore auteur John Waters scored all of his movies the same way: with "stolen" songs, mostly R&B oldies, from his own personal record collection. But for his 1974 magnum opus, Female Trouble, he wanted to have a newly-penned theme sung performed by his top-billed star, the 300-lb. female impersonator Divine. On the film's DVD commentary track, Waters reveals that the song's backing track is taken from a pre-existing song called "Black Velvet Soul."
Well, thanks to the magic of the Internet, it is now possible to compare these two historic tracks. The original "Black Velvet Soul" was written by Bob Harvey, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, and performed by R&B singer Cookie Thomas.
Anyway, here's Divine's version:
And here's the original: