Hotel California

When I was young, “Hotel California” filled me with an uneasy dread too complex for my child mind to process. The words and haunting melody transported me to a hellish nightmare where you could check out any time but you could never leave. It seemed The Eagles had been given some deep, dark, secret, knowledge about the nature of reality which us mere mortals weren’t ready for. When I found out the Eagles were just talking shit about people who party too much I went through the same stages of grief I experienced every week when Scooby Doo and the gang found out the abandoned amusement park wasn’t actually haunted; It was just a desperate old man trying to stop the bank from taking away everything he owned.

(

)

Sweet Child of Mine

Every band has at least one song they hate performing; it’s often their biggest hit.
Sweet Child of Mine was one of GNR’s biggest early hits. It was also mostly an accident. Slash was warming up his fingers in the studio by doing some repetitious cord playing that would be the equivalent to a concert pianist warming up by playing chopsticks. Band mate Izzy started playing along and everyone decided that it should be the intro to the song; everyone except Slash that is, who didn’t want to get on stage and play chopsticks. He was outvoted and a hit was born. At the end of the song the producer Spencer Proffer said they needed a few more seconds to wind it down. Coked up Axle couldn’t think of anything else, so he just swayed around jokingly repeating, “Where do we go now?” Proffer said, “Perfect! That’s a wrap. Go celebrate with some cocaine.” Slash absolutely hated the song. It is ranked #37 on Guitar World's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos.

(

)

Insane in the Brain

Every band has at least one song they hate performing, and it’s usually their biggest hit. It sucks even more when it is pretty much their only hit. Cypress Hill skyrocketed to fame in 1993 with their party hit “Insane in the Brain.” I always assumed the track was about being a thug/getting high. It was actually a “diss song” about rapper Chubb Rock, who the band had a “Beef” with. I’ve never heard of Chubb Rock so I looked him up on Wikipedia. It says he is famous and I should know who he is, so I looked him up on YouTube. His videos determined that was a lie. This is why you can’t use Wikipedia as a credible source on research papers. Cypress Hill found themselves butt flossing with a double edged sword. Insane in the Brain made them rich and famous, but now they had to spend the rest of their lives singing about a guy they hate.

(

)

I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing

Would you be surprised to learn that many musicians don’t write all their own songs? Shit, with millions of dollars at stake why bother spending a year writing a hit when you can just buy one from an established hit maker, especially when you are touring eight months out of the year? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Aerosmith signed on to do a song for the soundtrack to Steven Tyler’s daughter’s movie Armageddon. For reasons I’m sure had nothing to do with cocaine, Steven was having a hard time coming up with a hit so he went down to the song store and picked one out of the bargain bin. “I don’t want to miss a thing” was written by Diane Warren (Who wrote Milli Vanilli’s Blame it on the Rain) for Celine Dion, who was busy working on “My Heart Will Go On” written by Will Jennings, who wrote “Tears in Heaven” for Eric Clapton. So Aerosmith bought the song, leading to several years of middle school kids playing it to get their girlfriend to make out with them.

(

)

Somewhere over the rainbow

It’s a rare song that can make you happy and sad at the same time. What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong is one of them. Another is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Well, the Judy Garland version is actually hauntingly depressing. Hawaiian wonder boy Israel Kamakawiwo'ole took both songs and created a melody that makes you stare off into the distance while you are working and accidentally chop your finger off. The story behind how the song got written is pretty cool. In 1988 Milan Bertosa was wrapping up a grueling day at his recording studio at 3am when one of his clients called him up and said, “Hey, I got a kid that wants to record a song.” Milan was like, “Fuck no. I’m going to bed.” Israel got on the phone and asked really nice so Milan said, “Fine but you better get your ass here in 15 minutes.” Iz’s 500 pound ass squeezed through the door with his ukulele and a dream and recorded the song in one take. Milan and Iz both got a copy of the song to play for their friends and that’s as far as it went for five years until they bumped into each other at another studio where Iz was recording an album. Milan suggested they put that old ass song they recorded in 15 minutes at three in the morning five years ago on the album and it became the best selling Hawaiian album of all time. Granted, it was like the only Hawaiian album of all time.

(

)

Media Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,