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28 Great Songs With Backstories We Had No Idea About

By:: Brian C. Miller; Cracked Writers

December 12, 2023

28 Great Songs With Backstories We Had No Idea About

We all know the feeling. You’re listening to your favorite song on repeat when all of a sudden, you realize that you have no idea what the song is actually about. Sure, you can recite the lyrics line for line, but the story behind them? Nope. Not a clue. Don’t worry, though; you’re not alone. Turns out, even some of our favorite songs have hidden backstories we had no idea about. Check out these great tunes with surprising inspirations below…

28

CRACKED.COM Billie Jean almost got Michael Jackson killed. Jackson was so absorbed in the song, working on it in his head while driving, that he didn't notice his car was on fire. Someone on a bike had to point it out to him. — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

27

CRACKED.COM Keith Richards literally composed (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction in his sleep. Richards woke up in the middle of the night, recorded about 30 seconds of the song on a tape recorder, and then fell back asleep. In the morning he didn't remember any of it, until he played the recording. — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

26

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah became big because of Shrek. The song went mostly underappreciated for years, even as other artists kept covering it, until a version of it was used in a movie about an ogre, a princess, and a donkey. Then it started popping up everywhere. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

25

CRACKED.COM Dolly Parton's Jolene was a real woman. Parton kept teasing her husband about a red-headed bank teller who gave him a lot of attention. (Her name wasn't Jolene, though t that name came from a little girl Parton met while signing autographs.) — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

24

The Beach Boys' Never Learn Not to Love was written by Charles Manson. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson was close with Manson, until the band reworked and recorded one of his songs without crediting him. Manson was furious. Considering the Family's victims were murdered over much less that that, the Boys got off easy. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

23

Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

22

CRACKED.COM Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name was a different song (by Bonnie Tyler). Tyler's If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) didn't do as well as songwriter Desmond Child expected - so he rewrote the lyrics, changed the song's title, and gave it to someone else to prove it could be a hit. — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

21

Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline is named after JFK's daughter. Diamond needed a three-syllable name to fit the song he was writing. Then he remembered a photo of 7-year-old Caroline Kennedy he had seen in a magazine. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

20

Puff, the Magic Dragon has nothing to do with drugs. Leonard Lipton, who wrote the poem the song was based on, is sick of people asking him if it's really about smoking pot. Не swears it's a straightforward children's tale, and that advocating marijuana for little kids is not a good thing. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

19

CRACKED.COM The dude in Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady) is Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe. According to songwriter Desmond Child, the song was born when the band went into a club and saw a woman with teased- up platinum mullet and black nails and porcelain skin and jewelry and with a curvy waist - who turned out to be Neil. — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

18

Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine began as a dumb joke. During a jam session, Slash started making faces while playing a silly melody. The other band members liked the tune and ran with it. Within an hour my guitar exercise had become something else, Slash wrote. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

17

The Beastie Boys' (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)' was supposed to be a parody. The Beasties were poking fun at 1980's frat culture. Except that no one got the joke, and the song was adopted as an anthem celebrating the kind of debauchery it was sending up. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

16

CRACKED.COM Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water recounts a real tragedy. The story in the lyrics actually happened - the band was in Montreux, Switzerland, when some stupid with a flare gun burned down the casino where they were supposed to record an album using a mobile studio. otour — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

15

CRACKED.COM Paul McCartney was afraid he was plagiarizing Yesterday. After dreaming up the melody, McCartney wasn't sure it was actually his creation. For a time he went around asking people in the business if they had heard it before. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it, he said. — Source: 15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)

14

CRACKED.COM Queen's collaboration with David Bowie on Under Pressure was pure impromptu. David Bowie just happened to be by the studio where Queen was recording tracks for their 10th studio album when both parties decided to work on an original piece during a 24-hour session. Mercury and Bowie even did their vocals separately without hearing each other as they sang their part. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

13

Heart ICE-T METALLICA Kirk Hammett ganked part of the solo from Enter Sandman from Heart's Magic Man. But I didn't get it from Heart's version, explained Hammett. I CRACKED.COM got it from a cut off Ice-T's Power album, where he used it as a sample. The guitarist said he kept hearing the lick and thought, I have to snake this! — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

12

CRACKED.COM THE POWERPUFF GIRLS theme song is based on a sample from the break in the James Brown song Funky Drummer. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

11

Michael Jackson was Kanye West's biggest inspiration for his album CRACKED.COM Heartbreaks And 808s. K E WE When Kanye played Heartless to Jackson, he complimented him (without knowing it was him singing on the track), and that made Kanye way more confident about his singing. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

10

Desmond Child wrote 'If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)' for Bonnie Tyler, but the song did not reach the level of success he was hoping for. So he re-wrote it into 'You Give Love A Bad Name' for Bon Jovi, just to prove that the song was meant to be a hit. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

9

Bad was originally going to be a collaboration between Michael Jackson and Prince. Producer Quincy Jones says it was his idea to put the two rivals together, and turn that antagonistic energy into pop gold. Apparently it was a hard pass, for Prince. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

8

Keith Richards produced the guitar riff for (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction while asleep. Не woke up the next day without a clue until he heard a recording of about two minutes of guitar and then me snoring for the next forty minutes. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

7

Sam Smith sang Stay With Me all by himself -- no choir. Не got the choir effect by layering his voice (while standing in different spots) about 20 times, and what we hear is the finished demo. The song was written in 34 minutes and recorded in a single take, but it wasn't until he'd added the harmonies that he felt like the whole song suddenly made sense. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

6

CRACKED COM Crying in the Club Sia got the idea for Camilla Cabello's Crying In The Club when she was on her way to the toilet while writing a demo with producer Benny Blanco. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

5

Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around comes from a dream about Queen Elizabeth. In the dream, Cash went into Buckingham Palace and saw Queen Elizabeth sitting on the floor, and she told him, Johnny Cash, you're like a thorn tree in a whirlwind. After the dream had haunted him for years, he thought Maybe it's biblical. So he looked through the Bible and found imagery of thorn trees and whirlwinds, and started writing a song about them. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

4

Ed Sheeran wrote Afire Love for his grandfather, who never really knew the singer due to Alzheimer's disease. Не began writing the song two weeks before his grandfather passed away. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

3

CRACKED.COM Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra wrote Mr. Blue Sky after holing himself up in a Swiss cabin to write music. After two weeks of failing to write anything, he looked over at the sunny sky over the Swiss Alps, which inspired him to write the song. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

2

CRACKED.COM Leonard Cohen's record company, Columbia, originally refused to release his album with the song Hallelujah in the United States. They said it wasn't good enough. Cohen released Various Positions independently in 1984, to general indifference. So why is Hallelujah so popular? Thank this guy. Yes. A song full of religious and sexual imagery was made world famous by 2001's Shrek, a cartoon movie for children. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

1

CRACKED.COM Macarena was the result of a sudden outburst. One night, Antonio Romero Monge of the duo Los del Rio watched a great performance from one of their dancers, and called to her (in Spanish) Diana, give joy and good things to your body! Los del Rio used that as a refrain and wrote a song around it, Macarena. — Source: 29 Hit Songs' Secret Backstories

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