Top 10 Great Songs With Interesting Stories Behind Them

A masterpiece and one of the first Deep Purple songs that featured many metal elements.
How they wrote this song?

"This song was born on a tour bus going to Portsmouth in 1971 when a reporter asked the band how they wrote songs. To demonstrate, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore grabbed an acoustic guitar and began playing a riff consisting of a single "G" repeated over and over, while vocalist Ian Gillan improvised lyrics over the top. The song was refined and was performed that SAME NIGHT." (Wiki)

Wow, this is called musical genius. They didn’t even have a studio version and rehearsals. And, this appeared to be one of the first early metal songs so they were even inventing a new genre. Hands down.

This was Freddie's last song and he sang it when he was so ill that barely walked. He was dying.
Brian May had concerns as to whether Freddie was physically capable of singing it. But recalling Mercury's performance, May states:
"I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing.'
And he went, 'I'll f-cking do it, darling' - vodka down - and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal."

So true - we all know that Freddie "completely lacerated that vocal".

The fact that this was Freddy's last song makes it all the story behind it all the more emotional and interesting. I don't think other songs can top that.

He completely nailed it! I miss this legend. He was ill and he gave everything.

This song is a masterpiece from start to finish but one of it’s most beautiful and surprising elements is the sax solo. A sax solo is pretty unusual in a hard rock song when used instead of the expected guitar solo.

Foreigner wanted a "Junior Walker-style" sax solo for this record. When they took a break from recording, one of the members read in New York newspaper ‘The Village Voice’ that Walker was performing that night mere blocks from the recording studio. Walker had never heard of Foreigner but the group had promised a pretty good payday for one song, so he accepted their offer to play.

The recording of the sax solo was swift - they played the raw track for him and asked him to improvise a solo. After a SINGLE LISTENING, he amazed the group by cutting one of the most memorable sax solos in rock history IN ONE TAKE. Genius. There aren't many sax solos that are better.

In 1981 "Urgent" hit #1 on the Billboard Rock Tracks chart, a position it held for four ...more

Maybe not many of you know that the signature song of this hard rock band is actually A... Disco song!

Paul Stanley, who co-wrote the song with Desmond Child and Vini Poncia, has stated that it was a conscious effort on his part to prove how easy it was to write and record a hit disco song.
"I Was Made for Lovin' You" draws heavily from the disco style that was popular in late-1970s United States.

Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way", is actually a French song (Comme d'habitude by Claude François, available on YouTube).
The Canadian singer and songwriter Paul Anka was in Paris and after hearing the song while watching French television, bought the song's publication and adaptation rights for only ONE dollar. The original songwriters retained the music-composition half of their songwriter royalties.
Anka wrote English lyrics specifically for Frank Sinatra, who then recorded a cross-Atlantic version of it in 1969 under the title "My Way".
Paul Anka also sang it. Check out: Paul Anka - My Way.

I'm so sorry that the story is missing but it's not my fault - I submitted the stories to all items. Yet, 3 item descriptions did not appear - I guess they are waiting for human review and approval.

Björn and Agnetha of ABBA were bandmates but also a happy couple for 7 years, with 2 children. He fell for another woman and they got divorced. The failure of their marriage inspired Björn to write “The Winner Takes It All” (1980). That was the end of the marriage and the band - one of the most legendary groups of all time.

I think that it was psychologically quite cruel to make Agnetha sing this song, provided that she was obviously "The Loser who is standing small" and the other woman - The Winner Who Takes It All. Geez, as if the divorce alone wasn't cruel enough for her. But Agnetha nailed this song.

This is the most popular Metallica song but interestingly, it wasn't meant to be released at all because Hetfield wrote it for himself. But the drummer Lars Ulrich heard it and insisted on considering the song for the album.
And yes, this is a love song. Many people don't know this.

"Singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield wrote the song (credited to Hetfield/Ulrich) while he was on the phone with his then girlfriend. Since he held the phone with one hand, he plucked the four open strings of a standard E-minor chord with the other, which eventually made up the first two bars of the song. The lyrics, which talk about being "so close, no matter how far", were also dedicated to his girlfriend, indicating the bond they shared even when Hetfield was on tour." (wiki)

This amazing, beautiful and sad ballad is based on a sad story. Hansi Kürsch, singer & lyricist, witnessed two car accidents in his neighborhood while walking his dog - at the same intersection, within only one week. Hansi saw how two kids were killed - a boy and a girl.

Hansi Kürsch turned this tragedy into a sad but almost romantic story: the kids were soulmates and Death took the life of the boy by mistake too early. Then came back to take the life of the girl, too, because the boy was quite alone there. The song describes in details the second accident, when the "poor old Fiddler" talks to the girl: "Would you mind if take you? "
The album cover depicts this story.

A ballad written by Eric Clapton about his unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, wife of his friend George Harrison from The Beatles.

This song is actually a version of "If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)" - a song Desmond Child wrote for Bonnie Tyler. Desmond Child was dissatisfied with the chart success of Bonnie Tyler's song and re-wrote it as "You Give Love a Bad Name" for Bon Jovi.
I would kindly invite you to visit my list "Greatest Hit Songs Co-Written by Desmond Child". You will be surprised.

This song was written after an incident where Dave Mustiane shouted 'Give Ireland back to the Irish" after a fan threw a coin I think was which hit him and his guitar which then all hell broke loose as Protestant and Catholics starting fight each other and Megadeth had to be escorted back to Dublin in a bulletproof bus (They were playing in Northern Ireland)

A song dedicated to the enemy of the character. It's a suicide song - very beautiful but very controversial.

Every time I listen to this song I wonder if Halford wanted to kill himself because he was gay. Lyrics are written by him and I guess it was more difficult to be gay in the 70s than now. In 1977 there was a huge anti-gay campaign initiated by Anita Bryant. Judas Priest released this song in 1978 and Halford dedicated the song to "Anita Bryant and all those schmucks".

"No matter how they tried, they couldn't understand
...
Keep the world with all its sin, it's not fit for livin' in".

The lead singer of Slipknot Corey Taylor explained in an interview that "Goodbye" was a song he had written about the death of Paul Gray, one of Slipknot's members who died on May 24, 2010.

Her record label wanted her to open her album with a love song so she wrote a song about a partner who wanted her to write a love song about him but she didn't feel ready to do so.

I wonder what the story is of this song.