15 Pop Culture Facts About Music That Wasn't Churned Out By A Computer
These days, music is mostly made inside computers, and we may never know how weird it gets in those things. Back when it was made by people with wires and tape and stringy things and bangy things, though, we know exactly how weird it got. In fact, they had no problem telling us.
“Under Pressure”
If “Under Pressure” kinda sounds like at least two different songs spliced together, that's because it kinda was. The whole thing, iconic bassline included, was written and recorded in one night after Queen and David Bowie ran into each other in Switzerland, with Bowie and Freddie Mercury each improvising in different booths, unable to hear each other. Yes, there were lots of drugs.
“Smoke on the Water”
The fire that created the imagery that inspired Deep Purple to write “Smoke on the Water” was actually the building they were supposed to start recording in the next day. They set up instead inside a local theater, but after laying down just a few tracks (including some of “Smoke on the Water”), the neighbors complained so much that police shut them down. They simply rocked illegally hard.
“Gold Dust Woman”
The recording of Rumours was infamously fraught, and it really showed on “Gold Dust Woman.” During the final vocal take, Stevie Nicks became convinced she needed to block out all sensory input by wrapping a black scarf around her head, and Mick Fleetwood “just went mad, bashing glass with this big hammer,” producer Ken Caillat said. Yes, there were lots of drugs.
“Rocket Queen”
While recording Appetite for Destruction, Axl Rose decided what “Rocket Queen” needed was a woman's orgasmic moans, and no actress would do. Luckily, bandmate Steven Adler had pissed off his girlfriend, so she was willing to provide her services with Rose in the recording booth. You can hear their, uh, activities in the final cut.
“Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35”
“Rainy Day Women” has a famously loose and jovial brass band accompaniment, but Bob Dylan had a hard time getting the sound he wanted until he asked the musicians to play in ways they normally wouldn't. Several of them switched instruments, and one percussionist set up his drum on two chairs and hit it with a mallet. There may or may not have been lots of drugs.
“A Day in the Life”
Likewise, the Beatles encouraged the musicians who recorded the orchestral section of “A Day in the Life” to get silly by giving them fake noses and nipples to wear and balloons to blow up with their instruments. They had no score to follow, just an idea of which notes to begin and end with, which actually frustrated them more than the prostheses.
“Gimme Shelter”
“Gimme Shelter” is nothing without Merry Clayton's guest vocals, but the Rolling Stones didn't even know they needed it until they were mixing the song and realized parts of it would sound better by a woman. They didn't even know Clayton, who was summoned from her bed at midnight by producer Jack Nitzsche. She almost refused, as she was pregnant and exhausted, but she showed up, hair still in curlers, performed a masterpiece in three takes, and went back to sleep.
“Stand Back”
As hard as it was to coax Merry Clayton to the studio, imagine how hard it would be to get Prince at the drop of a hat. Well, it turns out it's not so hard for Stevie Nicks. While recording “Stand Back,” she decided to call his royal badness to let him know the song was inspired by “Little Red Corvette,” and he was so pleased he offered to come down to play keyboard for the song. Then “he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream,” Nicks later said.
“You're So Vain”
Mick Jagger got the chance to repay the on-call vocals fairy, but only because he was the one who called. “He happened to call at the studio,” Carly Simon recalled, while she was recording “You're So Vain.” “I said, 'We’re doing some backup vocals on a song of mine, why don’t you come down and sing with us?'" Maybe that's why she's always insisted the song is not, in fact, about him.
“The Boxer”
Some musicians will go to great lengths to get just the right sound, and in Simon & Garfunkel's case, that's literally true. The iconic snare drum heard on “The Boxer” was accomplished by hanging a microphone at the top of an elevator shaft to record the drum that was hit at the bottom.
“Twist and Shout”
Producer George Martin wanted a raw vocal track for “Twist and Shout,” so he intentionally waited until the end of a long recording day, when John Lennon already had a cold, to suggest trying a take. You can actually hear Lennon coughing at the end of the song.
“Yer Blues”
Lennon seemed to have developed a grudge against producers by the time the Beatles recorded “Yer Blues.” In response to the band's unorthodox recording methods, Ken Scott complained, “The way you lot are carrying on, you’ll be wanting to record everything in the room next door,” which was little more than a closet. Lennon thought that was a great idea, “so we got in a little cupboard,” Paul McCartney said, “a closet that had microphone leads and things, with a drum kit, amps turned to the walls, one mic for John. We did 'Yer Blues' live and it was really good."
“Bad Company”
Likewise, when Bad Company couldn't get the right sound from singer Paul Rodgers in Led Zeppelin's rural English recording studio, they sent him out into the middle of a nearby field in the dead of night. They ran cords from the house and gave him headphones to hear the music, but he was out there all alone. The line about the cold wind blowing wasn't supposed to be in the song -- he was just getting cold out there.
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond”
Syd Barrett was the driving creative force of Pink Floyd until what bandmate David Gilmour termed a “nervous breakdown” led to his departure in 1968, which is why they were all surprised to see him show up unannounced while they were recording “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a song that happened to be about him. They didn't even recognize him at first. Eventually, they asked what he thought of the song, and he said it sounded “a bit old” before wandering back out.
“The Show Must Go On”
By the time Queen was recording their last album with Freddie Mercury in 1990, he was so close to death that he could barely stand, and bandmate Brian May worried he was in no shape to perform the difficult vocals of “The Show Must Go On.” In response, Mercury declared, “I'll fucking do it, darling,” slammed a shot of vodka, and nailed it in one take. It's not clear why anyone was surprised. Did they not know the name of the song?