Over Easy:Just Say Baby, Baby
“just say baby baby”
“That boring bugger”, was how Robert Plant referred to his best known song, “Stairway to Heaven“, on a recent episode of my podcast Famous Lost Words. And Plantie is far from the only one to feel this way about his best known and best loved work. In some cases it’s sheer repetition that grinds down the creator, that and the unquenchable thirst that audiences have to hear something that you’ve played far too many times. Bob Dylan avoids this problem to a great extent by one of two tactics - either by not playing the songs people want to hear at all, or playing them and making them virtually unrecognizable. Sometimes this is done to great effect as for example his performance of “Masters of War” at the 1991 Grammy awards during the first Gulf war. I was there and had no idea what song he played.
On other occasions you get the sense that the artist was dragged kicking and screaming into the studio and forced at knife point to deliver the detested words of a lamentable song, leading to some hostage video type performances.
Tina Turner in the biopic “Tina” says of her biggest hit “What’s Love Got to Do With It”, “It was terrible. It was awful, I was rock ‘n’ roll … This was a pop song.”
By the time the song had revived her career and won a bunch of Grammys, Tina had accommodated herself to it quite graciously.
Frank Sinatra didn’t particularly care for “Strangers in the Night“, a #1 Billboard hit and the title track of his biggest album. “I hated this goddamn song the first time I heard it and I still hate it.” Not much wiggle room there. Of course Ol’ Blue Eyes went on to hate other standards in his catalogue, including “New York New York” and “My Way”, but he reserved a special venom for “Strangers in the Night”. Notoriously he would butcher the lyrics for his own amusement. One of his favourite variations was
“Strangers in the night exchanging glances
Wondering in the night just wear my pants is.”
Crooner comedy.
Now you might expect someone like Chrissie Hynde to look derisively upon the gems in her catalogue and she doesn’t disappoint. On the subject of her first hit “Brass in Pocket”, she says “I’ve never thought it was that great. Is it pop? Motown? Rock? It didn’t seem to know what it was. I remember walking around Oxford Circus hearing it blasting out of peoples’ radios. I was mortified”
So if someone mentions the band REM what’s the first song you think of? The members of the band would probably be happy if you said “Losing My Religion” or “What’s the Frequency Kenneth”, but my guess is “Shiny Happy People“ springs to mind. And that sound we just heard… that was a moan from singer Michael Stipe who describes the song as “a fruity pop song written for children“ They even refused to have it included on their 2003 greatest hits album.
OK, I’m warning you, this is gonna hurt. Neil Young’s opinion of the classic “Heart of Gold” is probably not what you would wish it to be. “This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rough ride but I met more interesting people there.“
I can hardly believe that I am about to mention the song “Cherry Pie” by Warrant for the second time in a few weeks but here you go. Jani Lane of Warrant says “I could shoot myself in the head for writing that song.” Supposedly written in response to a record company request, Lane wrote “Cherry Pie” in 15 minutes, scribbling the lyrics on a pizza box. A slice many wish had never been delivered.
Now, regretting writing “Cherry Pie” is one thing but the greatest rock anthem of all time? Well, regret Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” Robert Plant did. “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show.“
Sometimes like with Ol’ Blue Eyes, the artist wants nothing to do with the song from the get-go. When I was signed to Warner in the 70s, the head of A&R had a song that he really wanted me to sing, called “Disco Queen”. I’ll give you a moment to imagine my reaction to this idea. Luckily for posterity, I won the pitched battle that followed.
On the other hand, Lamont Dozier of the Motown hit writing team of Holland Dozier & Holland, told me about presenting “Where Did Our Love Go” to the Supremes. They’d written it for the Marvelettes, who were on top of the heap at Motown at the time. They hated it and said no, and went so far as to warn other acts on the label to watch out if the writers brought them this song. Here's what Lamont had to say about the song that launched the Supremes' career.
“Just say baby baby”
