More often than not, the story behind an artist’s hit song is beyond unexpected. For instance, in 2007, indie pop darling Sara Bareilles released her debut album Little Voice, which features her hit single “Love Song.” While the song sounds like a typical radio pop love song at first listen, the track is actually the exact opposite.
The story goes that Bareilles was pressured into writing the album’s hit single by producers who wanted a hit love song for radio. Instead, Bareilles proceeded to write the antithesis of a love song, criticizing everyone who pushed her to write one. “Love Song” then went on to chart for 41 weeks and peak at no. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Today, the story behind one of Bareille’s biggest hits remains a fun anecdote associated with one of the most nostalgic tunes of the 2000’s.
It’s not the only time an artist has taken a producer’s flub or funny one liner to create something completely new. Take, for example, Pete Wentz borrowing fellow musician Gabe Saporta’s (Cobra Starship, Midtown) tumblr title and turning into the refrain of “detox just to retox” in Fall Out Boy’s “Disloyal Order of Waterbuffalo,” or Aerosmith’s iconic “Walk This Way” being devoid of lyrics until the band watched Young Frankenstein (1974) and stole a line that would end up becoming the title of the song.
Here are five remarkable tunes with their own odd beginnings.
1. “Cake by the Ocean” by DNCE
A breakout hit for the DNCE, “Cake by the Ocean” became their most well known song to date. While talking with the band’s Swedish producers, lead vocalist Joe Jonas noted that their producers kept confusing the drink Sex on the Beach with “Cake by the Ocean” and ran with the image that idea conjured up. Wacky and sweet innuendo-filled lyrics followed suit, creating the unforgettable and downright catchy pop hit that currently garners over 1 billion streams on Spotify.
2. “London Dungeon” by Misfits
Misfits are no strangers to writing songs with nonsensical backstories. “London Dungeon” is about a night spent by the band in a British holding cell — but there’s no immediately clear story as to how the the Misfits came to be in that holding cell. The exact timeframe of this overnight stay vary story to story. Some fans believe that the band must have been arrested because of their distinctive makeup, as is alluded to in the line “make sure your face is clean now, can’t have no dirty dead,” while others believe that it was caused by a scuffle with skinheads while the band was headed to a venue.
In a 2008 Vice interview Bobby Steele, guitarist for the Misfits, came out to say that there was never any altercation; lead singer Glenn Danzig had too many drinks at a pub and decided that there must have been people there to fight them. Whatever the reason, Glenn Danzig did spend a night in a British holding cell and wrote “London Dungeon” about how horrible an experience it was.
3. “The Bog Body” by Viagra Boys
Is there anything serious about Viagra Boys? In a musical sense, yes — their music continues to be a powerhouse in the new wave of punk music. In a lyrical sense — maybe? It’s sometimes hard to tell what’s satirical and what’s not. “The Bog Body,” featured on their recent album viagr aboys, is no exception, telling the story of someone obsessed with jealousy over their partner getting cosy with someone — who just so happens to be a bog body. (Yes, bog body as in the pickled remains of someone who died in or around a bog.)
As unserious as that sounds, lead singer Sebastian Murphy revealed in an interview with Manchester’s Finest that the song came about after a tiff with his partner about her obsession with the facial reconstruction of a real bog body. The process of facial reconstruction aims to use the existing face of the body and technology to recreate what the bog body’s facial features would have looked like when they were alive. Unfortunately for Murphy, one bog body in particular had handsome enough features to steal his partner’s attention. Though, the band’s music video pokes more fun at celebrity status and the cyclical nature of trends than Murphy’s personal bog related jealousy.
4. “Babooshka” by Kate Bush
Hauntingly beautiful and spiritual, “Babooshka” tells the story of a woman pretending to be another woman to entice her husband into cheating. Whilst writing the song, Kate Bush had no idea what the word “babooshka” meant. Bush said in a 1980 interview with Radio 1 that after writing the song she began to see the word everywhere, in the name of a friend’s cat and a Russian opera on TV, and she felt it was a good omen for the song.
Unfortunately, the word means grandmother in Russian, and is neither a singular person or the beautiful woman that Bush writes about in the song. Knowing this doesn’t diminish the affect of the song though; it’s still plausible that this woman’s husband is simply looking for a grandmother to fill the void.
5. “Pepper” by Butthole Surfers
Though Butthole Surfers were creating psychedelic and relatively meaningless lyrics long before the likes of Beck, “Pepper” is supposedly partially inspired by the success of Beck’s hit song “Loser.” Out of ideas and sick of sitting on the couch all day, Beck wrote “Loser” in a few hours while staying at someone else’s house, and didn’t expect it to go anywhere. Essentially, the lyrics to “Loser” tell no story and mean nothing.
According to Spike, the success of “Loser” inspired Butthole Surfers to do their own take on something just as meaningless and random. The lyrics of “Pepper” don’t tell any particular story, instead telling short snippy vignettes outside of the nonsensical bridge and chorus. Musically, according to Spike, Butthole Surfers also mimic Beck by having sections of the song played in reverse over itself in a similar way to layered portions of “Loser.” “Pepper” quickly became their biggest hit and Butthole Surfers ascended to join the ranks of bands like Blur — whose “Song 2” parodied American grunge rock — in that their biggest hit was not necessarily meant to be good.
What’s your favorite song with a strange backstory?
