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Did you know? Songs Only

Centerfield Feb 01 2007 03:56 PM

Gregg Allman had an entire song written but couldn't decide on the title. Said Gregg in an interview with the San Luis Obispo (CA) Tribune on November 30, 2006: "And I had everything but the title. I thought 'But back home, we always run... to sweet Barbara' - no. Diane...? We always run... to sweet Bertha.' No, so I just kind of put it away for a while. So one night I was in the grocery store - it was my turn to go get the tea, the coffee, the sugar and all that other shit... and there was this Spanish lady there and she had this little toddler with her - this little girl. And I'm sitting there, getting a few things and what have you. And this little girl takes off, running down the aisle. And the lady yells, Oh, Melissa! Melissa, come back, Melissa!' And I went, 'Oh - that's it.' I forgot about half the stuff I went for, I went back home and, man, it was finished."

sharpie Feb 01 2007 04:17 PM

When Tommy James and the Shondells were in a recording session, they were working on a song where they needed a girl's name for the chorus. He went out for a cigarette break on a balcony and saw Mutual of New York's MONY sign on the skyline. Of course, that became "Mony Mony."

TheOldMole Feb 01 2007 06:41 PM

Na Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye was never supposed to be the lyric. It was just a scratch vocal that Gary DeCarlo, Paul Leka and Dale Frashuer put down while they were working on other material for DeCarlo, figuring they'd get back to it some time -- it was only going to be a "B" side anyway. Someone at the label decided to put it out as a single, and DeCarlo and Lake were so embarrassed by it that they didn't want to put their own names on it, so they invented an imaginary group name -- "Steam" -- to put on the label.

Edgy DC Feb 01 2007 06:46 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 01 2007 11:33 PM

Paul Leka was an idiot. He wrote a great song and he insists to this day that it was shit.

Frayed Knot Feb 01 2007 11:24 PM

Genesis's 'Abacab' was another one of those songs (like Mony, Mony) with a nonsense syllable added. It's origin was nothing more than the order of verses in the song; first A, then B, then back to A, then C ... etc. The final version of the song did NOT have the verses in that order but the nonsense syllable was already in the lyrics and that point and so it stuck.

TheOldMole Feb 02 2007 12:34 AM

Maybellene -- originally Ida Red. Peggy Sue - originally Cindy Lou.

Edgy DC Feb 02 2007 07:55 AM

The Police were concerned that "All I Want Is to Be Next to You" wasn't punk enough, and tried to convince Sting to re-write it as "All I Want's to Shoot a Gun at You." Sting was right. It happens.

sharpie Feb 02 2007 08:59 AM

The Clash's Mick Jones was showing off his new composition "I'm So Bored With You" which featured the line "I'm so bored with you, I say..." Joe Strummer mis-heard it as "I'm So Bored with the USA" so the song was re-written with that in mind.

RealityChuck Feb 02 2007 10:20 AM

When the tune to "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney, he wanted to put some lyrics to it quickly so he wouldn't forget it. He used the words "Scrambled Eggs." McCartney produced the Bonzo Dog Band's single, "I'm the Urban Spaceman" under the pseudonym of "Apollo C. Vermouth." Neil Innes is the only musician to perform on screen in films by both the Beatles and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

sharpie Feb 02 2007 10:24 AM

As his marriage to Cynthia was disintegrating, John Lennon was in bed with her as she was going on and on about something or other. He wrote on a nearby piece of paper "words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup" to describe her nagging monologue. He got out of bed and wrote the rest of "Across the Universe" which ended up as, well, not a song about a nagging wife.

Edgy DC Feb 02 2007 10:28 AM

"E=MC2" was written by Mick Jones and filmmaker Don Letts after Jones invited Letts to join Big Audio Dynamite. The song is a tribute to Nicolas Roeg. The lyrics reference Roeg's films, including Performance Walkabout Don't Look Now Insignificance The Man Who Fell To Earth Eureka, and Bad Timing. I know, pretty wanky for a song that grooves and rocks as such.

Edgy DC Feb 02 2007 10:56 AM

Oh, an another title that comes from a mishearing: Stevie Nicks supposedly asked Tom Petty's wife when they met. She answered "The age of seventeen." Nicks, unaccustomed to southern accents, heard "The edge of seventeen."

TheOldMole Feb 02 2007 01:52 PM

Frank Loesser was given the assignment of writing the songs for the musical to be made from Damon Runyon's short stories. But they were having tremendous trouble getting a book -- several writers tried and failed. Loesser was getting tired of waiting, so finally he just wrote the "Guys and Dolls" songs, and said, "Here, write the book around these."

Centerfield Feb 05 2007 10:40 AM

The Led Zeppelin song "D'yer Mak'er" is pronounced "Jamaica", not "Dire Maker".

Johnny Dickshot Feb 05 2007 11:03 AM

Those angelic harmonies providing the ooohs and ahhhs behind Walter Egan's extraordinary "Magnet and Steel" are Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, though they aren't credited with it.

TheOldMole Feb 05 2007 11:18 AM

Carl Perkins wrote "Blue Suede Shoes" on the back of a sandwich bag from his local grocery store. During his years of alcohol addiction, he pretty much trashed everything he had, but his wife saved that sandwich bag. After he wrote the song, he called Sam Phillips late at night, to tell him, "Mr. Phillips, I've just written a new song. It's called 'Blue Suede Shoes.'" Phillips: Is it like "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers"? Perkins: No, it's about this guy who just got a new pair of shoes, and he doesn't want his girl friend to step on them. Phillips: I don't think so, Carl. Perkins: Wait! Just listen... (sings into the phone) Phillips: How fast can you get down to the recording studio? On the paper bag, the lyric is "Go, man go." Perkins accidentally sang "Go, cat go," on the first take. He realized his mistake, and figured, well, he'd better be consistent, and sing the same lyric again after the instrumental break. "You can hear the slight pause, while I'm making sure to remember to say, 'cat,' Perkins says, but I've listened a million times, trying to hear the pause, and it's not there. When he'd finished the take, he said, "Mr. Phillips, we've got to do it again. I got the lyric wrong. I said 'cat,' instead of 'man.' " Phillips: We'll go with 'cat,' Carl.

Edgy DC Feb 05 2007 11:54 AM

Perkins: Are you sure? Phillips: This is really just a demo for the King anyway, you sucker. Perkins: What's that? That didn't quite make it through the headphones, Sam.

metirish Feb 05 2007 12:00 PM

The other night I was researching songs written about Northern Ireland and the troubles...I was surprised to see that " invisible sun" by the Police is about that subject. I dont want to spend the rest of my life Looking at the barrel of an armalite I dont want to spend the rest of my days Keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say I dont want to spend my time in hell Looking at the walls of a prison cell I dont ever want to play the part Of a statistic on a government chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Sun

Edgy DC Feb 05 2007 12:08 PM

Don't be surprised. His wife at the time was an actress from the north. Check the video, which pretty much spells it out. Andy Summers guitar on that song rips a hole in the sky. If Sting still really thinks of himself as a subversive, they should open the Grammys with that and send it out to the people of Baghdad.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 05 2007 02:03 PM

REM's bouncy & fun Pop Song 89 has the same little guitar riff thingy happening as REM's depressing & sullen Feeling Gravity's Pull. Check it out for yerself. Plus bonus boobies.

Edgy DC Mar 06 2007 03:49 PM

The first time Lorenz Hart tried to write a lyric to a particularly lovely Richard Rogers' melody, it was to be featured in an MGM musical called Hollywood Party, which was to feature a Jean Harlow character singing the song as she prayed for the chance to be a star: Oh Lord If you're not busy up there I ask for help with a prayer So please don't give me the air The scene was cut and the song ("Prayer [Oh Lord, Make Me a Movie Star]") rightly shitcanned without ever being recorded, but the duo didn't give up on the melody. The next year, they were commissioned to write for "Manhattan Melodrama," and they pulled the tune out again, as "It's Just That Kind Of Play," with the lyric: Act One: You gulp your coffee and run Into the subway you crowd Don’t breathe, it isn’t allowed This time they managed to record it and film it, before --- again correctly --- cutting it. At the same time, the studio asked for a nightclub song for the film, so they pulled out the melody again (for the same film!), and re-submitted the song as "The Bad in Every Man," sung by Shrley Ross in blackface: Oh, Lord I could be good to a lover But then I always discover The bad in ev’ry man Released on record and as sheet music, the song failed. But the MGM head finally figured out how committed the duo were to the song and suggested they write it for commercial release with more romantic lyrics. Hart finally corrected history with: Blue moon You saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own MGM won anyway, as they retained the publishing rights, and --- among all its iterations --- the song has susequently appeared in many MGM films, and if you hear it used in a film, there likely a lion roaring at the beginning. On the other hand, four versions of the song appear in John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, which IMDB tells me is from Universal.

TheOldMole Mar 06 2007 07:10 PM

When I lived in the city in the 70s, the singer Margaret Whiting was a good friend, and she told me a story of when she had been seeing songwriter Walter Gross, sort of seriously, but finally broke up with him over his drinking problem. So one night there's a banging on her door about 2 in the morning, and it's Walter Gross, banging and yelling and cursing, "Let me in, you fucking bitch!" She lets him in. "You fucking bitch, you ruined my life! And now I'm gonna show you just what I think of you." He staggers over, sits down at the piano. "You fucking bitch, I'm gonna show you just what I think of you. I just wrote this for you." He plays the melody to "Tenderly."