As lost tunes go, Ian Lloyd’s “Slip Away” was a pretty successful one.

It was also a departure for Lloyd, who first made a name for himself as the lead singer of the Stories with an impressively soulful voice. His best known performance was the Stories’ 1973 cover of the Hot Chocolate song, “Brother Louie,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

When the Stories broke up, Lloyd went solo and began doing session work. His second solo album, the 1979 release Goose Bumps, fell into the New Wave/pop category — and landed him a hit with “Slip Away.”

The song was actually written by Rick Ocasek of the Cars, who appears on the album and sings backup on the song. It’s hard not to pick out the Cars-like sound in the song and, in fact, the Cars recorded the song themselves, as you’ll hear below.

It also put Lloyd on Billboard’s Top 40 at a time when up-tempo jingles were all the craze on the airwaves.

But “Slip Away,” while Lloyd’s highest rising solo hit, has hardly completed his post-Stories legacy. The Seattle-born Lloyd went on to sing for some of rock’s biggest names, adding vocals to top-selling studio albums by Foreigner, Peter Frampton and Billy Joel.

Now living in New York, he continues to take the stage, both with his own band and with Social Hero, a band fronted by his son, David.

Anyway, if you clicked the link above you heard Lloyd’s version of “Slip Away.” Now hear how the Cars handled the Ocasek tune:

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