Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Freddie Mercury wrote the lyrics, and there has been a lot of speculation as to their meaning. Many of the words appear in the Qu'ran. "Bismillah" is one of these and it literally means "In the name of Allah." The word "Scaramouch" means "A stock character that appears as a boastful coward." "Beelzebub" is one of the many names given to The Devil.

Mercury's parents were deeply involved in Zoroastrianism, and these Arabic words do have a meaning in that religion. His family grew up in Zanzibar, but was forced out by government upheaval in 1964 and they moved to England. Some of the lyrics could be about leaving his homeland behind. Guitarist Brian May seemed to suggest this when he said in an interview about the song: "Freddie was a very complex person: flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood. He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put a lot of himself into that song."

Another explanation is not to do with Mercury's childhood, but his sexuality - it was around this time that he was starting to come to terms with his bisexuality, and his relationship with Mary Austin was falling apart.

Whatever the meaning is, we may never know - Mercury himself remained tight-lipped, and the band agreed not to reveal anything about the meaning. Mercury himself stated, "It's one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them." He also claimed that the lyrics were nothing more than "Random rhyming nonsense" when asked about it by his friend Kenny Everett, who was a London DJ.

The band were always keen to let listeners interpret their music in a personal way to them, rather than impose their own meaning on songs, and May stated that the band agreed to keep the personal meaning behind the song private out of respect for Mercury.
Mercury may have written "Galileo" into the lyrics for the benefit of Brian May, who is an astronomy buff. Galileo is a famous astronomer known for being the first to use a refracting telescope.
The backing track came together quickly, but Queen spent days overdubbing the vocals in the studio using a 24-track tape machine. The analog recording technology was taxed by the song's multitracked scaramouches and fandangos: by the time they were done, about 180 tracks were layered together and "bounced" down into sub-mixes. Brian May recalled in various interviews being able to see through the tape as it was worn so thin with overdubs. Producer Roy Thomas Baker also recalls Mercury coming into the studio proclaiming, "oh, I've got a few more 'Galileos' dear!" as overdub after overdub piled up.
Queen made a video for the song to air on Top Of The Pops, a popular British music show, because the song was too complex to perform live - or more accurately, be mimed live on TOTP. Also, the band would be busy on tour during the single's release and thus unable to appear.

The video turned out to be a masterstroke, providing far more promotional punch than a one-off live appearance. Top Of The Pops ran it for months, helping keep the song atop the charts. This started a trend in the UK of making videos for songs to air in place of live performances.

When the American network MTV launched in 1981, most of their videos came from British artists for this reason. In the December 12, 2004 issue of the Observer newspaper, Roger Taylor explained: "We did everything we possibly could to avoid appearing in Top Of The Pops. It was one, the most boring day known to man, and two, it's all about not actually playing - pretending to sing, pretending to play. We came up with the video concept to avoid playing on Top Of The Pops."

The group had previously appeared on the show twice, to promote the "Seven Seas of Rhye" and "Killer Queen" singles.
The video was very innovative. It was the first where the visual images took precedence over the song. It was based on their Queen II album cover, with the four band members looking up into the shadows. Directed by Bruce Gowers, it was shot in 3 hours for £3,500 at the band's rehearsal space.

Gowers got the gig because he was one of the few people who had experience working on music videos - he ran a camera on a few Beatles promotional clips, including the one for "Paperback Writer." The two big effects used in the video were the multiple images that appear in the "thunderbolts and lightning section," which were created by putting a prism in front of the camera lens, and the feedback effect where the image of the singer travels to infinity, which was done by pointing a camera at a monitor (like audio feedback, this is something you usually tried to avoid, but when harnessed for artistic purposes, was innovative). At the time, the video looked high-tech and futuristic. It was also the first music "video" in the sense that it was shot on video instead of film.
This was Queen's first Top 10 hit in the US. In the UK, where Queen was already established, it was #1 for 9 weeks, a record at the time.
This got a whole new audience when it was used in the 1992 movie Wayne's World, starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. In the film, Wayne and his friends lip-synch to it in his car (the Mirth Mobile), spasmodically head-bobbing at the guitar solo. As a result of the movie, it was re-released as a single in the US and charted at #2. "Jump" by Kris Kross kept it out of #1.
At 5:55, this was a very long song for radio consumption. Queen's manager at the time, John Reid, played it to another artist he managed, Elton John, who promptly declared: "are you mad? You'll never get that on the radio!"

According to Brian May, record company management kept pleading with the group to cut the single down, but Freddie Mercury refused. It got a big bump when Mercury's friend Kenny Everett played it on his Capital Radio broadcast before the song was released (courtesy of a copy Mercury gave him). This helped the single jump to #1 in the UK shortly after it was released.

There was a single version released only in France on a 7", cut down to 3:18, edited by John Deacon, but beyond the initial pressing of this French single, the only version recognized is the album version, at 5:55. This little-heard French single started right at the piano intro, and edited out the operetta part. Brian May admitted that there may have been additional parts for the song on Freddie's notes, but they were apparently never recorded. (thanks, Ryan - Eaton, IN)
Brian May recalled recording "Bohemian Rhapsody" in Q Magazine March 2008: "That was a great moment, but the biggest thrill for us was actually creating the music in the first place. I remember Freddie coming in with loads of bits of paper from his dad's work, like Post-it notes, and pounding on the piano. He played the piano like most people play the drums. And this song he had was full of gaps where he explained that something operatic would happen here and so on. He'd worked out the harmonies in his head."
In 1991, this was re-released in the UK shortly after Freddie Mercury's death. It again went to #1, with proceeds going to the Terrence Higgins Trust, which Mercury supported.
Elton John performed this with Axl Rose at the 1992 "Concert For Life," held in London at Wembley Stadium. It was a tribute to Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS the year before. In 2001, Elton John got together with Eminem, who like Axl Rose, was often accused of being intolerant and homophobic. They performed Eminem's "Stan" at the Grammys.
When this was re-released in the US, proceeds from the single went to the Magic Johnson AIDS Foundation. Johnson and Freddie Mercury were two of the first celebrities to get AIDS. Rock Hudson, who succumed to the disease on October 2, 1985, was another.
Thanks to this track, A Night At The Opera was the most expensive album ever made at the time. They used 6 different studios to record it. Queen did not use any synthesizers on the album, which is something they were very proud of.
In an interview with Brian May and Roger Taylor on the Queen Videos Greatest Hits DVD, Brian said: "What is Bohemian Rhapsody about, well I don't think we'll ever know and if I knew I probably wouldn't want to tell you anyway, because I certainly don't tell people what my songs are about. I find that it destroys them in a way because the great thing about about a great song is that you relate it to your own personal experiences in your own life. I think that Freddie was certainly battling with problems in his personal life, which he might have decided to put into the song himself. He was certainly looking at re-creating himself. But I don't think at that point in time it was the best thing to do so he actually decided to do it later. I think it's best to leave it with a question mark in the air." (thanks, Callum - Bendigo, Australia)
A Night At The Opera was re-released as an audio DVD in 2002 with the original video included on the disc. Commentary from the DVD reveals that this song had started taking shape in the song "My Fairy King" on Queen's debut album. (thanks, nathan - l-burg, KY)
In 2002, this came in #1 in a poll by Guinness World Records as Britain's favorite single of all time. John Lennon's "Imagine" was #2, followed by The Beatles' "Hey Jude."
The name "Bohemian" in the song title seems to refer not to the region in the Czech republic, but to a group of artists and musicians living roughly 100 years ago, known for defying convention and living with disregard for standards. A "Rhapsody" is a piece of Classical music with distinct sections that is played as one movement. Rhapsodies often have themes. (thanks, George - Dusseldorf, Germany)
Roger Taylor (from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh): "Record companies both sides of the Atlantic tried to cut the song, they said it was too long and wouldn't work. We thought, 'Well we could cut it, but it wouldn't make any sense,' it doesn't make much sense now and it would make even less sense then: you would miss all the different moods of the song. So we said no. It'll either fly or it won't. Freddie had the bare bones of the song, even the composite harmonies, written on telephone books and bits of paper, so it was quite hard to keep track of what was going on." Kutner and Leigh's book also states that, the recording included 180 overdubs, the operatic parts took over 70 hours to complete and the piano Freddie played was the same one used by Paul McCartney on "Hey Jude." (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England)
Ironically, the song that knocked this off the #1 chart position in the UK was "Mama Mia" by Abba. The words "Mama mia" are repeated in this in the line "Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go." (thanks, James - St Albans, England)
Weird Al Yankovic took the entire song and sung it to a Polka tune, called simply "Bohemian Polka," which is on his 1993 album Alapalooza. (thanks, Steph - SoCal, CA)
The story told in this song is remarkably similar to that in Albert Camus' book The Stranger. Both tell of a young man who kills, and not only can he not explain why he did it, he can't even articulate any feelings about it. (thanks, Bob - Santa Barbara, CA)
You can make the case that the song title is actually a parody, and a clever one at that. There is a rhapsody by the composer Franz Liszt called "Hungarian Rhapsody," and "Bohemia" is a kingdom that is near Hungary and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Furthermore, "Bohemian" is an adjective for something unusual or against convention, and the song is just that.

So, "Bohemian Rhapsody" could be a clever title that not only parodies a famous work but also describes the song. In a nod to the Liszt composition, Queen would go on to release a live DVD/CD package in 2012 titled "Hungarian Rhapsody," featuring their famous shows behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest on the Magic tour in 1986.
This song was covered by Constantine M. (featuring the cast of We Will Rock You) and also by The Flaming Lips for the 2005 Queen Tribute album Killer Queen. Another popular cover is by Grey DeLisle, who did it as an acoustic ballad for her album Iron Flowers.
Queen fans, and also Brian May, often colloquially refer to the song as "Bo Rhap" (or "Bo Rap").
The name "Bohemian Rhapsody" makes many appearances in popular culture:

Session 14 of the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop is named "Bohemian Rhapsody."

The Jones Soda Company has a drink named "Bohemian Raspberry" in honor of this song.

In one of the episodes of the TV miniseries Dinotopia, a character cheats on a poem project by using the first part of the song as his entire project. The inhabitants, having never heard the song before, are amazed at the sound of it. (thanks, Jonathon - Clermont, FL, for above 2)
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett used some of the lyrics in their book Good Omens. The main character (Crowley) plays it in his car all the time. They also refer to other Queen songs, but mostly "Bohemian Rhapsody." (thanks, Bella - Pretoria, South Africa)
The Spanish group Molotov sampled the chorus for their Spanish-language Rap version of this song called "Rap, Soda and Bohemias." It appears on their 1998 album Molomix. (thanks, Juan - Brownsville, TX)
In 2009, The Muppets Studio released a video featuring the Muppets performing this song. It was first web video for The Muppets, and it was extremely popular: the video was viewed over 7 million times the first week it was up. The furry ones changed the song a bit, omitting the lyrics that begin, "Mama, just killed a man" with Animal screaming "Mama!"
In an interview with Q magazine March 2011, Roger Taylor was asked if this seemed like a peculiar song when Mercury first suggested it? He replied: "No, I loved it. The first bit that he played to me was the verse. 'Mama, just killed a man, dah-dah-la-dah-daah, gun against his…' All that. I thought, 'That's great, that's a hit.' It was, in my head, a simpler entity then; I didn't know it was going to have a wall of mock Gilbert and Sullivan stuff, you know, some of which was written on the fly. Freddie would write these huge blocks of mass harmonies in the backs of phone books."
The song is one of Freddie Mercury's great mysteries - according to everyone in the band, only he knew truly how it would come together, and according to some sources, its genesis could have come many years earlier. Chris Smith, the keyboard player in Mercury's first band Smile, claimed that Freddie would play several piano compositions at rehearsals, including one called "The Cowboy Song," which started with the line, "mama, just killed a man."
In sharp contrast to the rest of the song's recording and composition, Brian May's signature solo before the opera section was recorded on only one track, with no overdubbing. He stated that he wanted to play "a little tune that would be a counterpart to the main melody; I didn't just want to play the melody."

It is one of his finest examples of creating a solo in his mind before playing it on guitar; something he did many times throughout Queen's career. His reasoning was always that "the fingers tend to be predictable unless being led by the brain."

Sumber : Songfacts

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Songfacts : I Am The WalrusbyThe Beatles

John Lennon wrote this song. As stated in the DVD Composing the Beatles Songbook, John was throwing together nonsense lyrics to mess with the heads of scholars trying to dissect The Beatles songs. They also mention that it's John's answer to Bob Dylan's "getting away with murder" style of songwriting. Lennon told Playboy years later that "I can write that crap too," which is rarely mentioned in relation to this song.
Lennon explained the origins of this song in his 1980 Playboy interview: "The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to 'Element'ry penguin' is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, 'Hare Krishna,' or putting all your faith in any one idol. I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days."
Lennon got the idea for the oblique lyrics when he received a letter from a student who explained that his English teacher was having the class analyze Beatles songs. Lennon answered the letter; his reply was sold as memorabilia at a 1992 auction. (thanks, Emery - San Jose, CA)
The voices at the end of the song came from a BBC broadcast of the Shakespeare play King Lear, which John Lennon heard when he turned on the radio while they were working on the song. He decided to mix bits of the broadcast into the song, resulting in some radio static and disjointed bits of dialogue.

The section of King Lear used came from Act Four, Scene 6, with Oswald saying: "Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse," which comes in at the 3:52 mark. After Oswald dies, we hear this dialogue:
Edgar: "I know thee well: a serviceable villain, As duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire."
Gloucester: "What, is he dead?"
Edgar: "Sit you down, father. Rest you."
The idea for the Walrus came from the poem The Walrus and The Carpenter, which is from the sequel to Alice in Wonderland called Through the Looking-Glass. In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said: "It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, s--t, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it?"
When Lennon decided to write confusing lyrics, he asked his friend Pete Shotton for a nursery rhyme they used to sing. Shotton gave them this rhyme, which Lennon incorporated into the song:
"Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, all mixed together with a dead dog's eye.
Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick."
The song's opening line, "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" is based on the song "Marching To Pretoria," which contains the lyric, "I'm with you and you're with me and we are all together." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France, for above 3)
The choir at the end sings "Oompah, oompah, stick it in your jumper" and "Everybody's got one, everybody's got one."
This song helped fuel the rumor that Paul McCartney was dead. It's quite a stretch, but theorists found these clues in the lyrics, none of which are substantiated:
"Waiting for the van to come" means the 3 remaining Beatles are waiting for a police van to come. "Pretty little policemen in a row" means policemen did show up.
"Goo goo ga joob" were the final words that Humpty Dumpty said before he fell off the wall and died.
During the fade, while the choir sings, a voice says "Bury Me" which is what Paul might have said after he died.
During the fade, we hear someone reciting the death scene from Shakespeare's play "King Lear."

In addition, a rumor circulated that Walrus was Greek for "corpse" (it isn't) in Greek, so that is what people thought of Paul being the Walrus. Also, in the video, the walrus was the only dark costume. (thanks, Reg - Pottstown, PA and Tommy - flower mound, TX)
The BBC banned this for the lines "pornographic priestess" and "let your knickers down."
This was released as the B-side to "Hello Goodbye," which Paul McCartney wrote. This angered Lennon because he felt this was much better.
In The Beatles song "Glass Onion," Lennon sang, "The Walrus was Paul." He got a kick out of how people tried to interpret his lyrics and figure out who the Walrus was.
Lennon got the line "Goo Goo Ga Joob" from the book Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. "Semolina Pilchard" was Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, head of the Scotland Yard Drugs Unit. He led the arrests of both John Lennon and Brian Jones et al, before being investigated himself for blackmail and bribery in the '70s. (thanks, Matt - London, England)
Eric Burdon (of Animals and War fame) stated in his biography that he is the Egg Man. It seems he told John Lennon of a sexual experience he was involved in where an egg played a major part. After that, John called him Egg Man.
ELO's song "Hello My Old Friend" has an identical form to this - almost the same tune and orchestration but different words. No wonder Jeff Lynne is sometimes referred to as the 6th Beatle.
In the Anthology version of this song, they experiment with 4 octaves in the intro. Also, just before Lennon says, "Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun," Ringo does 2 hits on snare and floor tom before hitting crash. (thanks, Riley - Elmhurst, IL)
In an episode of The Simpsons, "The Bart Of War," airing May 18, 2003, Bart and Milhouse break into a secret room in the Flanders' household to discover that Ned is a Beatles fanatic. Bart takes a sip from a can of 40-year-old Beatles-themed novelty soda and quotes this song: "Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye," while Milhouse takes a trip and sees various Beatles inspired hallucinations. (thanks, Ashley - Moncton, Canada)
Styx covered this song in 2004 and made a music video for it with a cameo from Billy Bob Thornton. They performed it at Eric Clapton's Crossroads benefit that year, and incorporated it into their set lists. Their version appears on their One with Everything DVD. (thanks, Caitlyn - Farmington Hills, MI)
After John Lennon went solo, he wrote a song called "God" where he sang, "I was the walrus, but now I am John." (thanks, Webspin - Daytona, FL)
Artists to cover this song include Guided By Voices, Jackyl, Phil Lesh, Love/Hate, Men Without Hats, Oasis, Oingo Boingo, Spooky Tooth and Styx. The Dead Milkmen recorded a completely different song with the same title in 1987. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention performed the song as part of their late '70s - early '80s live repertoire, giving it their own comic treatment. It was a favorite of the fans. (thanks, Dan - Milwaukee, WI)
See the Beatles "Sitting in an English garden" in Song Images.
Bono sings this song in the movie Across the Universe, a film centered around the music of The Beatles. In the film, he plays Dr. Robert, also a reference to another Beatles song. (thanks, Jordan - Brooklyn, NY)
This was the first song the Beatles recorded after Brian Epstein's death. Engineer Geoff Emerick recalled, "the look of emptiness on their faces when they were playing."
John Lennon's "I'm Crying..." lyric came from the Smokey Robinson & the Miracles song "Ooh Baby Baby," where Robinson sings that phrase in the refrain.

Source: Songfact

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Songfacts : Royals by Lorde

Ella Yelich-O'Connor is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Inspired by her love for such royals as Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI of France, and the last Tsar, Nicholas II of Russia, she adopted the moniker of Lorde (The 'e' is pronounced silently). Yelich-O'Connor was discovered when her now manager, Scott Maclachlan, saw a video of her performing at a Belmont Intermediate School talent show when she was 12. In development with Universal Music NZ since she turned 13, the young singer signed to the US-based Lava Records three years later. This is her first single, which debuted at #1 on the New Zealand Top 40 on March 15, 2013 and stayed there for three weeks. Yelich-O'Connor was just 16-years-old at the time.
Yelich-O'Connor's management paired her with other local songwriters, none of whom worked out very well until she met Joel Little of the Pop-Punk group Goodnight Nurse. The teenage songstress told the New Zealand Herald that unlike the other would-collaborators, whom she felt didn't take her seriously because of her age and wanted to do all the work, she enjoys writing with Little because "he doesn't want to put his huge big signature on the music." They penned this underdog song with a similar regal theme to Yelich-O'Connor's stage name during her school holidays.
The song debuted at Billboard's Alternative Songs at #30. It was the highest entry for a solo female making her first visit to the airplay chart as a lead artist since M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" arrived at #28 in 2008.

The song later climbed to #1 on Alternative Songs making Lorde the first solo female to top that particular chart in 17 years. The last solo female to lead the tally was Tracy Bonham, whose "Mother, Mother" topped the charts on June 8, 1996. That was five months before Lorde was even born.
This came out of Yelich-O'Connor listening to the Kanye West and Jay-Z project Watch the Throne, as well as Lana Del Rey's debut album, Born To Die. "What really got me," she told The Observer, "is this ridiculous, unrelatable, unattainable opulence that runs throughout. Lana Del Rey is always singing about being in the Hamptons or driving her Bugatti Veyron or whatever, and at the time, me and my friends were at some house party worrying how to get home because we couldn't afford a cab. This is our reality!" (laughs). "If I write songs about anything else then I'm not writing anything that's real."
Yelich-O'Connor wrote the lyrics to this takedown of the luxurious lifestyle that Hip-Hop artists rap about in just half an hour. She told the NZ Listener, "When I wrote Royals, I was listening to a lot of rap, but also a lot of Lana Del Rey, because she's obviously really hip-hop influenced, but all those references to expensive alcohol, beautiful clothes and beautiful cars - I was thinking, 'This is so opulent, but it's also bulls--t.'"
Yelich-O'Connor recalled writing this song to Billboard magazine: "I was just at my house, and I wrote it before I went to the studio," she said. "I wrote it in like half an hour - the lyrics, anyway. I wrote all the lyrics and took them to the studio and my producer [Joel Little] was like, 'Yeah, this is cool.' We worked on that and on two other songs on the EP in a week, and just did a little bit every day."
This song topped Hot 100. On being told news of her coronation by Billboard magazine, Yelich-O'Connor commented: "It feels like a combination of my birthday, Christmas and washing my hair after a month of not doing so."
Lorde was the youngest artist to top the US charts since Tiffany (who was also 16) reached the summit with "I Think We're Alone Now" in 1987. She was also the first New Zealand act to achieve a Billboard Hot 100 #1 as lead artist (fellow Kiwi Kimbra was featured on Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" in 2012).
The numerous Royal-ties arising from this chart-topping satire of material excesses resulted in an ironic situation for Lorde due to the potential riches that might become available. "I get the irony of 'Royals' and royalties," she told Interview magazine. "But I can't pull any money out of my bank account unless my dad okays it, so I think I'll be all right."
Lorde became the youngest solo artist to write and perform a Hot 100 chart-topper when this reached #1 (she was 16 years and 11 months when "Royals" climbed to #1). The record was previously held by Soulja Boy Tell'em, who had just turned 17 when his self-written and produced "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" reached the summit. However, as Yelich-O'Connor didn't produce the song, (Joel Little manned the boards) the American rapper remains the youngest act to write, perform and produce a US #1 single.
The song was used in a global commercial for Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartphone, where it was sung by young children in the streets of Barcelona. The ad agency's music supervisor Gabe McDonough told Billboard magazine: "[The creative directors] had a concept to use an old showtune, but as we were looking, I was like, 'Wait a minute. There's a new tune that's perfect.'"
Lorde revealed during an interview with VH1 that the song was inspired in part by a photograph she saw of baseball legend George Brett. The Major League third baseman spent his entire 21-year baseball career playing for the Kansas City Royals, leading them to a World Series title in 1985. "I had this image from the National Geographic of this dude signing baseballs," she said. "He was a baseball player and his shirt said 'Royals.' And I was like 'I really love that word,' because I'm a big word fetishist, I'll pick a word and I'll pin an idea to that. It was just that word and I was like 'This is really cool.'"
This was named the Best Song of 2013 by MTV News. MTV said: "She may never be 'royal,' but Lorde's chart-topping single will forever be enthroned in the collective cerebral cortex of the world."
Lorde starting writing songs in her early teenage years, but one of the lyrics from "Royals" came from even a few years earlier. "I think one of the first lines I wrote from that song," she told Radio.com, "'We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams' was in a diary that I had when I was like 11 or 12, so young."
This won for Song Of The Year at the Grammy Awards in 2014. "This is the one thing I did not expect most out of tonight," Lorde said in accepting the award. She also took the award for Best Pop Solo Performance for the song, and was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album and Record Of The Year. Lorde also performed the song at the ceremony.

Source : Songfacts

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Songfacts: Lucille by Little Richard

This song began as a ballad Richard wrote called "Directly From My Heart to You," which he recorded as a member of The Johnny Otis band in 1955. "Directly From My Heart to You" was released by Peacock Records as a B-side, and when Little Richard recorded for Specialty Records in September, 1955, he tried recording the song for his first album. It didn't make the cut, but Richard's career took off, and when he needed another single in 1957, he revived the song, but gave it the sound that made him a star, speeding up the tempo considerably.

The lyrics were completely rewritten, and Richard went to a common theme for his hits: a girl's name. If Lucille was based on a real woman who broke Richard's heart, he isn't saying - he told Rolling Stone in 1970: "I don't know what inspired me to write it, it may have been the rhythm." Certainly, the lyrics serve the rhythm, with the nonsensical first line "Lucille, won't you do your sister's will" scanning to the beat.

If there was a real Lucille, it would probably be either Richard's (female) lover Lee Angel, or his mentor Steve Reeder Jr., who performed under the name Esquerita. Little Richard hasn't kept a lot of secrets, so it's more likely that he did make up Lucille. His next single was also named after a girl: "Jenny, Jenny."
In a 1999 interview with Mojo magazine, Richard explained: "The effects and rhythms you hear on my songs, I got 'em from the trains that passed by my house. Like 'Lucille' came from a train – Dadas-dada-dada-dada, I got that from the train."
This was released at a time when Richard was hot - he sold 32 million records in 1956 and 1957. His songs were also very successful for other artists, who sometimes outsold him with his own songs. "Lucille" was covered by The Everly Brothers, who matched Richard's #21 peak position with their version in 1960. Waylon Jennings had a #1 Country hit when he recorded this on his 1983 album It's Only Rock and Roll, and other artists to cover the song include Van Halen, Deep Purple, Johnny Winter, Bill Haley & His Comets, Otis Redding, AC/DC and The Hollies. (thanks, Julian - Oakland, AR)
Other popular Lucille's in music: B.B. King's guitar is named Lucille, and Kenny Rogers had a hit with different song with the same title in 1977 - his is the one that goes, "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille..."

Source : songfacts

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Songfacts : Stairway To HeavenbyLed Zeppelin

The most famous Rock song of all time, this didn't chart because it was never released as a single to the general public. Radio stations received promotional singles which quickly became collector's items.

On Tuesday November 13, 2007, Led Zeppelin's entire back catalogue was made available as legal digital downloads, making all of their tracks eligible for the UK singles chart. As a result, at the end of that week the original version of "Stairway To Heaven" arrived in the UK singles charts for the first time. Previously, 3 covers had charted: the multinational studio band Far Corporation reached #8 with their version in 1985, then Reggae tribute act Dread Zeppelin crawled to #62 in 1991 and finally Rolf Harris' reworking outdid the other two, peaking at #7 in 1993.
Robert Plant spent much of the '70s answering questions about the lyrics he wrote for "Stairway." When asked why the song was so popular, he said it could be its "abstraction," adding, "Depending on what day it is, I still interpret the song a different way - and I wrote the lyrics."

The lyrics take some pretty wild turns, but the beginning of the song is about a woman who accumulates money, only to find out the hard way her life had no meaning and will not get her into heaven. This is the only part Plant would really explain, as he said it was "a woman getting everything she wanted without giving anything back."
Led Zeppelin started planning "Stairway" in early 1970, when they decided to create a new, epic song to replace "Dazed And Confused" as the centerpiece of their concerts. Jimmy Page would work on the song in an 8-track studio he had installed in his boathouse, trying out different sections on guitar. By April, he was telling journalists that their new song might be 15 minutes long, and described it as something that would "build towards a climax" with John Bonham's drums not coming in for some time. in October, 1970 after about 18 months of near constant touring, Page and Plant worked on the song at a Welsh cottage called Bron-yr-Aur, where they started writing songs for the album. They started recording it in December when the band convened at Island Studios in London, but were only able to record the intro to their satisfaction.

To complete "Stairway" and the rest of the album, they changed venues and went to Headley Grange in Liphook Road, Headley, Hampshire, where they recorded using a mobile studio owned by The Rolling Stones. It was a huge, old, dusty mansion with no electricity but great acoustics. Bands would go there to get some privacy and focus on songwriting, as the biggest distractions were the sheep and other wildlife. Here's more information and a photo of Headley Grange.
The lyrics came to Robert Plant in a flash of inspiration when he and Jimmy Page were sitting by the fireplace at Headley Grange with Page strumming the intro chords. Said Plant: "I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold/And she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leapt out of my seat."

Plant's implication that something else was moving his pencil for him led to speculation that it was Satan who was dictating the words, and along with the backward messages and Page's Aleister Crowley connection, there was enough evidence for many listeners that the devil had some role in creating this song.
This is rumored to contain backward satanic messages, as if Led Zeppelin sold their souls to the devil in exchange for "Stairway To Heaven." Supporting this theory is the fact that Jimmy Page bought Aleister Crowley's house in Scotland, known as Boleskine House. In his books, Crowley advocated that his followers learn to read and speak backwards.

Robert Plant addressed the issue in an interview with Musician magazine: "'Stairway To Heaven' was written with every best intention, and as far as reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that's not my idea of making music. It's really sad. the first time I heard it was early in the morning when I was living at home, and I heard it on a news program. I was absolutely drained all day. I walked around, and I couldn't actually believe, I couldn't take people seriously who could come up with sketches like that. There are a lot of people who are making money there, and if that's the way they need to do it, then do it without my lyrics. I cherish them far too much." (thanks, Rob - Easton, PA and Tolga - Naples, FL)
This runs 8:03, but still became one of the most-played songs on American radio, proving that people wouldn't tune out just because a song was long. It was a perfect fit for FM radio, which was a newer format challenging the established AM with better sound quality and more variety. "Stairway" fit nicely into what was called the "Album Oriented Rock" (AOR) format, and later became a staple of Classic Rock. By most measures, it is the most-played song in the history of American FM radio. It has also sold more sheet music than any other rock song - about 10,000 to 15,000 copies a year, and more than one million total.
Jimmy Page has a strong affinity for this song, and felt Robert Plant's lyrics were his best yet. He had him write all of Zeppelin's lyrics from then on. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (March 13, 1975) the interviewer, Cameron Crowe, asked Jimmy Page how important "Stairway To Heaven" was to him: Page replied: "To me, I thought 'Stairway' crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best... as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with 'Stairway.' Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don't know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance."
This was the only song whose lyrics were printed on the album's inner sleeve.
Many novice guitarists try to learn this song, and most end up messing it up. In the movie Wayne's World, it is banned in the guitar shop where Wayne (Mike Myers) starts playing it. If you saw the movie in theaters, you heard Wayne play the first few notes of the song before being scolded and pointed to a sign that says "NO Stairway To Heaven" (Wayne: "No Stairway. Denied."). Because of legal issues - apparently even a few notes of "Stairway To Heaven" have to be cleared, and good luck with that - the video and TV releases of the movie were changed so Wayne plays something incomprehensible. This novice guitar Stairway cliché later showed up on an episode of South Park when the character Towelie tries to play the song in a talent show and screws it up.
Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones decided not to use a bass on this because it sounded like a folk song. Instead, he added a string section, keyboards and flutes. He also played wooden recorders that were used on the intro. Bonham's drums do not come in until 4:18.
Robert Plant is a great admirer of all things mystic, the old English legends and lore and the writings of the Celts. He was immersed in the books Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence and The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Tolkien inspiration can be heard in the phrase, "In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees," which could be a reference to the smoke rings blown by the wizard Gandalf. There is also a correlation between the lady in the song and the character from the book, Lady Galadriel, the Queen of Elves who lives in the golden forest of Lothlorien. In the book, all that glittered around her was in fact gold, as the leaves of the trees in the forest of Lothlorien were golden. (thanks, Shannon - Tacoma, WA)
Dolly Parton covered this on her 2002 album Halos and Horns, and Robert Plant said he liked her version. Other artists to cover this include U2, Jimmy Castor, Frank Zappa, The Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, Sisters of Mercy, Nancy Wilson, Zakk Wylde, Elkie Brooks, Pardon Me Boys, White Flag, Jana, Great White, Stanley Jordan, Far Corporation, Dixie Power Trio, Justin Hayward, Leningrad Cowboys, Dread Zeppelin, Tiny Tim, piano virtuoso Richard Abel, and Monte Montgomery. Neil Sedaka had an unrelated Top-10 hit with the same title in 1960. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada)
Many critics trashed this song when it came out: Lester Bangs described it as "a thicket of misbegotten mush, and the British music magazine Sounds said it induced "first boredom and then catatonia."
Led Zeppelin played this for the first time in Belfast on March 5, 1971 - Northern Ireland was a war zone at the time and there was rioting in nearby streets. John Paul Jones said in an audio documentary that when they played it, the audience was not that impressed. They wanted to hear something they knew - like "Whole Lotta Love."

The song got a better reception when the band started the US leg of their tour. In an excerpt from Led Zeppelin; The Definitive Biography by Ritchie Yorke, Jimmy Page said of playing the song at an August, 1971 show at the Los Angeles Forum: "I'm not saying the whole audience gave us a standing ovation - but there was this sizable standing ovation there. And I thought, 'This is incredible because no one's heard this number yet. This is the first time hearing it!' It obviously touched them, so I knew there was something with that one." (thanks, Adrian - Wilmington, DE)
Jimmy Page considers this a masterpiece, but Robert Plant does not share his fondness for the song. Plant has referred to it as a "wedding song" and insists that his favorite Led Zeppelin song is "Kashmir." After the band broke up, Plant refused to sing it except on rare occasions, including Live Aid.
This was the last song the remaining members of Led Zeppelin performed when they reunited for Live Aid in 1985. Bob Geldof organized the event, and did his best to get many famous bands to play even if they had broken up. Unlike The Who, Geldof had an easy time convincing Plant, Page, and Jones to play the show. They played the Philadelphia stage with Tony Thompson and Phil Collins sitting in on drums.
The acoustic, fingerpicking intro is very similar to the song "Taurus" from the band Spirit, who toured with Led Zeppelin when they first played the US. Regarding the composition of the track, Jimmy Page told Rolling Stone: "I was trying things at home, shunting this piece up with that piece. I had the idea of the verses, the link into the solo and the last part. It was this idea of something that would keep building and building."
Former Gospel singer Pat Boone covered it for his album In a Metal Mood. He wanted to see how it would turn out as a Jazz waltz, and it opened and closed with soft flute-playing. In a subtle reference to his Christian faith, Boone changed the line "All in one is all and all" to "Three in one is all and all" - a reference to the Christian god, the Trinity. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada)
Another notable cover was by an Australian performer called Rolf Harris, who used a wobbleboard (piece of quite floppy wood, held at both sides, arched slightly and wobbled so the arch would continually invert) and changed the line "And it makes me wonder" to "Does it make you wonder." (thanks, iain - edinburgh, Scotland)
In the '90s, Australian TV host Andrew Denton had a show on which various artists were asked to perform their version of this song. Their versions were released on an album called The Money or the Gun: Stairways to Heaven. Artists performing it included Australian Doors Show, The Beatnix, Kate Ceberano and the Ministry of Fun, Robyne Dunn, Etcetera Theatre Company, The Fargone Beauties, Sandra Hahn and Michael Turkic, Rolf Harris, Pardon Me Boys, Neil Pepper, The Rock Lobsters, Leonard Teale, Toys Went Berserk, Vegimite Reggae, The Whipper Snappers, and John Paul Young. In reply to Rolf Harris' version, Page and Plant performed his song "Sun Arise" at the end of another Denton TV show. (thanks, Graham - Australia)
In January 1990, this song was added to the Muzak playlist in a solo harp version. Unlike the original, the Muzak version, arranged and recorded to provide an "uplifting, productive atmosphere" and "counteract the worker-fatigue curve in the office environment," did not do so well, as even this sanitized version drew a lot of attention to the song, thus undermining the intention of the Muzak programming. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
The band performed this at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in 1988 with Jason Bonham sitting in on drums for his late father. Plant did not want to play it, but was convinced at the last minute. It was sloppy and Plant forgot some of the words. This was not the case when Jason joined them again in 2007 for a benefit show to raise money for the Ahmet Ertegun education fund. They performed this song and 15 others, earning rave reviews from fans and critics.
Zeppelin's longest ever performance of this song was their last gig in Berlin in 1980. It clocked in around 15 minutes long. (thanks, Marshall - Gallatin, TN)
Gordon Roy of Wishaw, Scotland had all of the lyrics to this song tattooed on his back. He did it as a tribute to a friend who died in a car accident.
In the late '90s, the radio trade magazine Monday Morning Replay reported that "Stairway" was still played 4,203 times a year by the 67 largest AOR (album-oriented rock) radio stations in the US. ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, refuses to release exact figures on how many times it has been played since its release, but figure that on each AOR station in America, the song was played 5 times a day during its first 3 months of existence; twice a day for the next 9 months; once a day for the next 4 years; and 2 to 3 times a week for the next 15 years. There are roughly 600 AOR and Classic Rock stations in the US, which means that "Stairway" has been broadcast a minimum of 2,874 times. At 8 minutes per spin, roughly 23 million minutes - almost 44 years - have been devoted to the song. So far.
On January 23, 1991, under the direction of owner and general manager John Sebastian, the radio station KLSK (104.1 FM) in Albuquerque, New Mexico played this song over and over for 24 hours, confounding listeners who weren't used to hearing Led Zeppelin on the station. The song played over 200 times, with many listeners tuning in to find out when it would end. It turned out to be publicity stunt, as the station was switching to a Classic Rock format.
Explaining his guitar setup for the solo, Jimmy Page told Guitar Player magazine in 1977: "I was using the Supro amp for the first album, and I still use it. The 'Stairway to Heaven' solo was done when I pulled out the Telecaster, which I hadn't used for a long time, plugged it into the Supro, and away it went again. That's a different sound entirely from the rest of the first album. It was a good, versatile setup."
The Foo Fighters did a mock cover of this song, and their version was to say that nobody should try to cover the song because they will screw it up. Dave Grohl intentionally carried the intro on way too long, asked his drummer and audience for lyrics, and when it came time for the guitar solo, he sang Jimmy Page's part. This was done purely as a joke, and to tell people not to cover the song, as Grohl is a huge Zeppelin fan, and lists Zeppelin's John Bonham as a major influence. (thanks, Bert - Pueblo, NM)
Rolling Stone magazine asked Jimmy Page how much of the guitar solo was composed before he recorded it. He replied: "It wasn't structured at all [laughs]. I had a start. I knew where and how I was going to begin. And I just did it. There was an amplifier [in the studio] that I was trying out. It sounded good, so I thought, "OK, take a deep breath, and play." I did three takes and chose one of them. They were all different. The solo sounds constructed - and it is, sort of, but purely of the moment. For me, a solo is something where you just fly, but within the context of the song."
Mary J. Blige recorded this in 2010 backed by Travis Barker, Randy Jackson, Steve Vai and Orianthi. Blige told MTV: "Once you get lost in the rock-and-roll moment of it, all you can do is scream to the top of your lungs or go as low as you need to go. It's not a head thing - it's a spirit thing." She added: "I am a Led Zeppelin fan. I've listened to their music since I was a child, and it's always moved me, especially 'Stairway To Heaven.' I make songs my own by going deep inside myself and translating them to 'what would Mary do.'" The song is included as a bonus track on the UK re-issue of her album Stronger With Each Tear and made available for download. Blige performed the song on the April 21, 2010 episode of American Idol. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
In solo work or with other groups, Jimmy Page would not let anyone but Robert Plant sing this, but he does play it as an instrumental on occasion.
The ending of this song is distinctive in that is closes out with just Robert Plant's voice. According to Jimmy Page, he wrote a guitar part to end the song, but decided to leave it off since the vocal at the end had such an impact.

Source : songfacts

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Songfacts : Billie Jean by Michael Jackson

This song is about a girl who claimed that Jackson was the father of her child. Jackson based it on a woman who used to stalk him, writing him letters about a son she thought was his. Jackson rarely spoke about this woman, but he had a very hard time dealing with this unwanted attention, and he became more reclusive as a result. The song was his way of expressing his feelings without addressing her directly.

While Jackson didn't give many details about the real Billie Jean, his producer Quincy Jones said that Jackson found the woman one day lounging by his pool with a bathing suit and sunglasses on. According to Jones, she accused Jackson of being the father of one of her twins, which Jones thought was pretty funny.
In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson said that Quincy Jones wanted to change the title to "Not My Lover" because he thought it would be confused with the tennis star Billie Jean King. Jackson ended up winning that battle.
Michael Jackson says about this song in Moonwalk, "A musician knows hit material. It has to feel right. Everything has to feel in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. You know it when you hear it. That's how I felt about 'Billie Jean.' I knew it was going to be big while I was writing it. I was really absorbed in that song. One day during a break in a recording session I was riding down the Ventura Freeway with Nelson Hayes, who was working with me at the time. 'Billie Jean' was going around in my head and that's all I was thinking about. We were getting off the freeway when a kid on a motorcycle pulls up to us and says, 'Your car's on fire.' Suddenly we noticed the smoke and pulled over and the whole bottom of the Rolls-Royce was on fire. That kid probably saved our lives. If the car had exploded, we could have been killed. But I was so absorbed by this tune floating in my head that I didn't even focus on the awful possibilities until later."
According to Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 songs, Jackson came up with the song's rhythm track on his home drum machine and nailed the vocals in one take.
This won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance and Best Rhythm & Blues Song for the writer Michael Jackson.
The video for this song is often credited with breaking the color barrier on MTV, which debuted August 1, 1981. The clip for "Pass The Dutchie" by Musical Youth was the first video by a black act to make regular rotation on the network, but they were considered a novelty, with no member older than 16.

Jackson's "Billie Jean" video was the first to make heavy rotation, and more black faces started appearing on the network soon after, notably Prince. MTV was accused of racism in this era, notably by Rick James, whose "Super Freak" clip was rejected by the network. MTV was programmed by guys with radio backgrounds who tried to program it like a radio station with a Rock format, something that proved impossible because they didn't have enough videos by Rock artists. What they did have were lots of European acts (like Musical Youth), who had been making videos for years, and were overwhelmingly white. Record companies wouldn't budget for videos by their black artists since they didn't think MTV would play them, so the network could make the argument that they simply didn't have any good videos by black artists that were worthy. That argument went out the window when Jackson made the "Billie Jean" video, which was startlingly innovative, and a precursor to the video game Dance Dance Revolution, as some scenes showed Jackson performing his dance moves by stepping on squares as they would light up.

Despite the production value and Jackson's star quality, MTV didn't play the video until the song was already a #1 hit. Les Garland, who ran the network at the time, claims that they loved the video and played it as soon as they could, but interviews with executives at Jackson's record company and with others familiar with the matter suggest otherwise. In the book I Want My MTV, multiple sources who worked at MTV claimed that the network wanted to air the "Beat It" video first, because Eddie Van Halen played on it and the song fit their format. Walter Yetnikoff, who was head of CBS Records (Jackson's was signed to its subsidiary, Epic), recalls threatening to pull all CBS videos from MTV if they didn't play "Billie Jean." He says he threatened to bring Jackson's producer Quincy Jones in on it as well, and the network acquiesced. When MTV started playing the clip, it was first put in medium rotation, then promoted to heavy rotation when viewers loved it. When the video for "Beat It" was delivered, that one also went into hot rotation. For a two month stretch in the summer of 1983, both videos were getting constant airplay, establishing Jackson as a video star. His next video effort was for "Thriller," which revolutionized music videos.
This was the second of 7 US top 10 hits from the Thriller album. "The Girl Is Mine" was released before this.
The video showcased Jackson's signature dance moves that he became famous for. His talents as a dancer helped make him a huge concert draw and a star on MTV. High-energy dancing was a huge part of his act, and artists like New Kids on the Block and his sister Janet followed his lead and made dance moves as big a part of their shows as singing. This trend continued as groups like *NSYNC and The Backstreet boys followed suit. Jackson choreographed the dance moves himself.
On the 1983 TV special 25 Years Of Motown, Jackson did The Moonwalk for the first time while performing this song. This was also the first time Jackson wore his famous white glove on stage - at the time it was a modified golf glove.
Jackson shot a Pepsi commercial in 1984 performing this with the lyrics altered to sing the praises of the soda. During the shoot, his hair caught fire from the pyrotechnics and he was rushed to the hospital. The commercial aired on the Grammy awards.
The UPC code on the album cover contained 7 digits that were rumored to be Jackson's telephone number. People with that number in many different area codes got swamped with annoying calls.
This inspired an "answer song" - Lydia Murdock's 1983 disco hit "Superstar." In "Superstar," Murdock adopts the persona of Billie Jean, telling her side of the story. No word on if Jackson ever heard it. (thanks, Adam - Dewsbury, England)
According to Q magazine, March 2008, Michael Jackson wrote this in his home studio in Encino. He worked for 3 weeks on the bass line alone.
Producer and record mogul Antonio "LA" Reid told Rolling Stone magazine April 15, 2004: "Billie Jean is the most important record he's made, not only because of its commercial success but because of the musical depth of the record. It has more hooks in it than anything I've ever heard. Everything in that song was catchy, and every instrument was playing a different hook. You could separate it into 12 different musical pieces and I think you'd have 12 different hits. Every day, I look for that kind of song." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Former Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell recorded a stripped-down, emotional version of this song for his 2007 solo album Carry On. In March, 2008, David Cook performed a similar version on American Idol, drawing rave reviews from the judges and some criticism from viewers who felt he ripped off Cornell's version. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Quincy Jones discussed this song in a radio interview printed in Radio Times. The Thriller producer recalled: "The intro to 'Billie Jean' was so long you could shave during it. I said we had to get to the melody sooner…but Michael said that was what made him want to dance. And when Michael Jackson says something makes him want to dance, you don't argue, so he won."
In the first chart week following Jackson's death, he placed a record 21 entries on the Hot Digital Songs chart, including this song. The late singer thus overtook the mark of 14 charted titles established by David Cook on the June 7, 2008, chart. One of Cook's cuts that week was his cover of this tune.
During an interview in Thailand, Jackson was asked about the inspiration behind this song. He replied: "There is a girl named Billie Jean, but it's not about that Billie Jean. Billie Jean is kind of anonymous. It represents a lot of girls. They used to call them groupies in the '60s. They would hang around backstage doors, and any band that would come to town they would have a relationship with, and I think I wrote this out of experience with my brothers when I was little. There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there. Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers."
The music video was directed by Steve Barron, who was chosen because Jackson and Quincy Jones likes his work on the Human League video for "Don't You Want Me." Barron's original idea was more complex and involved a group of dancers. With budget a factor, they simplified the concept and went with the idea of Jackson having a Midas Touch, with the squares he stepped on lighting up. To save on set design, they used a technique where painted glass was placed in front of the camera to fill in the wide shots without building actual set pieces. You can see this on some shots where Jackson is on a sidewalk with a city landscape behind him.

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Songfacts : Hotel CaliforniabyEagles

Written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, this song is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America. Don Henley in the London Daily Mail November 9, 2007 said: "Some of the wilder interpretations of that song have been amazing. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce."

On November 25, 2007 Henley appeared on the TV news show 60 Minutes, where he was told, "everyone wants to know what this song means." Henley replied: "I know, it's so boring. It's a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about."
California is seen from the perspective of an outsider here. Only Bernie Leadon and Timothy B. Schmit were from the state: Joe Walsh came from New Jersey, Don Henley was from Texas, Glenn Frey was from Detroit, and Don Felder was from Florida. In our interview with Don Felder, he explained: "As you're driving in Los Angeles at night, you can see the glow of the energy and the lights of Hollywood and Los Angeles for 100 miles out in the desert. And on the horizon, as you're driving in, all of these images start coming into your mind of the propaganda and advertisement you've experienced about California. In other words, the movie stars, the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, the beaches, bikinis, palm trees, all those images that you see and that people think of when they think of California start running through your mind. You're anticipating that. That's all you know of California."

Don Henley put it this way: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles."
This won the 1977 Grammy for Record Of The Year. The band did not show up to accept the award, as Don Henley did not believe in contests. Timothy B. Schmit had just joined the band, and he says they watched the ceremony on TV while they were rehearsing.
Don Felder came up with the musical idea for this song. According to his book Heaven and Hell: My Life in The Eagles, he came up with the idea while playing on the beach. He had the chord progressions and basic guitar tracks, which he played for Don Henley and Glenn Frey, who helped finish the song, with Henley adding the lyrics. Felder says they recorded the song about a year after he did the original demo, and in the session, he started to improvise the guitar part at the end. Henley stopped him and demanded that he do it exactly like the demo, so he had to call his housekeeper and have her play the cassette demo over the phone so Felder could remember what he played.
The lyric, "Warm smell of colitas," is often interpreted as sexual slang or a reference to marijuana. When we asked Don Felder about the term, he said: "The colitas is a plant that grows in the desert that blooms at night, and it has this kind of pungent, almost funky smell. Don Henley came up with a lot of the lyrics for that song, and he came up with colitas."

The Eagles aimed for a full sensory experience in their songwriting. Felder adds, "When we try to write lyrics, we try to write lyrics that touch multiple senses, things you can see, smell, taste, hear. 'I heard the mission bell,' you know, or 'the warm smell of colitas,' talking about being able to relate something through your sense of smell. Just those sort of things. So that's kind of where 'colitas' came from."
This was recorded at three different sessions before the Eagles got the version they wanted. The biggest problem was finding the right key for Henley's vocal.
Glenn Frey compares this to an episode of The Twilight Zone, where it jumps from one scene to the next and doesn't necessarily make sense. He says the success of the song comes from the audience creating stories in their minds based on the images.
The line "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast" is a reference to Steely Dan. The bands shared the same manager and had a friendly rivalry. The year before, Steely Dan included the line "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" on their song "Everything You Did."
Don Felder and Joe Walsh played together on the guitar solos, creating the textured sound.
The lyrics for the song came with the album. Some listeners thought the line "She's got the Mercedes Bends" was a misspelling of "Mercedes Benz," not realizing the line was a play on words.
Glenn Frey: "That record explores the under belly of success, the darker side of Paradise. Which was sort of what we were experiencing in Los Angeles at that time. So that just sort of became a metaphor for the whole world and for everything you know. And we just decided to make it Hotel California. So with a microcosm of everything else going on around us." (thanks, Moomin - London, England)
When the Eagles got back together in 1994, they recorded a live, acoustic version of this song for an MTV special that was included on their album Hell Freezes Over. Don Felder came up with a new guitar intro for this version the day they recorded it, and while it was not released as a single, it got a lot of airplay, helped the album top the charts the first week it was released, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, a category introduced in 1980 when the Eagles won with "Heartache Tonight."

Felder had some beef with how the credits were listed on this new version - the original single had the composers as "Don Felder, Don Henley and Glenn Frey," implying that Felder wrote most of the song and Frey the least. The new version was credited to "Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Don Felder." Felder claims that Henley and Frey added nothing original to the new version, and that this was simply a power play. Felder was fired from the band in 2001 after disputing payments and royalties.
All 7 past and present members of the Eagles performed this in 1998 when they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
The hotel on the album cover is the Beverly Hills Hotel, known as the Pink Palace. It is often frequented by Hollywood stars. The photo was taken by photographers David Alexander and John Kosh, who sat in a cherry-picker about 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard to get the shot of the hotel at sunset from above the trees. The rush-hour traffic made it a harrowing experience. Check out the hotel.
Although it is well known that Hotel California is actually a metaphor, there are several strange Internet theories and urban legends about the "real" Hotel California. Some include suggestions that it was an old church taken over by devil worshippers, a psychiatric hospital, an inn run by cannibals or Aleister Crowley's mansion in Scotland. It's even been suggested that the "Hotel California" is the Playboy Mansion. (thanks, Adam - Dewsbury, England)
The music may have been inspired by the 1969 Jethro Tull song "We Used to Know," from their album Stand up. The chord progressions are nearly identical, and the bands toured together before the Eagles recorded "Hotel California." In a BBC radio interview, Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson said laughingly that he was still waiting for the royalties. In Ian Anderson's interview with Songfacts, he makes it clear that he doesn't consider "Hotel California" to be borrowing anything from his song: "It's difficult to find a chord sequence that hasn't been used, and hasn't been the focus of lots of pieces of music. It's harmonic progression is almost a mathematical certainty you're gonna crop up with the same thing sooner or later if you sit strumming a few chords on a guitar. There's certainly no bitterness or any sense of plagiarism attached to my view on it, although I do sometimes allude, in a joking way, to accepting it as a kind of tribute."
After Don Henley came up with the title, a theme developed for the album. Don Felder told us how some of the other songs fit in: "Once you arrive in LA and you have your first couple of hits, you become the 'New Kid In Town,' and then with greater success, you live 'Life In The Fast Lane,' and you start wondering if all that time you've spent in the bars was just 'Wasted Time.' So all of these other song ideas kind of came out of that concept once the foundation was laid for 'Hotel California.' It was a really insightful title."
Don Felder: "I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu, I guess it was around '74 or '75. I remember sitting in the living room, with all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day. I had this acoustic 12-string and I started tinkling around with it, and those Hotel California chords just kind of oozed out. Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great just plops in your lap." (thanks, Stone - Libertyville, IL)
An alternative interpretation of the meaning of the lyrics is that the song is a description of the journey from Need to Love and Marriage to Divorce and ultimately to the impossibility of regaining the life and happiness of the pre-divorce state.
Initially the traveler is feeling the need of a relationship ("My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night"). The traveler meets his love and gets married ("There she stood in the doorway. I heard the mission bell"). A marriage commitment opens up the possibility of happiness but also the traveler is aware and vulnerable to the possibility of intense unhappiness ("And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell")
Unfortunately the marriage dissolves and his love becomes obsessed with money ("Her mind is Tiffany-twisted") where Tiffany" refers to the very expensive jewelry store, Tiffany & Co. With the divorce there is the division of property - she got the Mercedes Benz. After the breakup when he sees her with any guys she reassures him that the pretty, pretty boys" are just friends." In this new world of being single the other singles he meets do their dance in the courtyard" of life. They generally fall into two groups: There are those who can't stop talking about their Ex ("Some dance to remember") and there are those who don't what to say anything at all about their past marriage ("some dance to forget").
Now in this world of being divorced he longs to return the pre-divorced state of happiness ("So I called up the captain, please bring me my wine"), but he finds that his happiness is now irrevocably in the past ("We haven't had that spirit here since 1969").
Deep into the post-divorce single's scene with "mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice" he is reminded that "we are all just prisoners here, of our own device." He and others want this divorce nightmare to be over, yet - "they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast." Now frustrated, he panics and is "running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before" But he is brought up short when the night man informs him that "You can checkout any time you like (commit suicide), but you can never leave" (become pre-divorced).
There are two choruses in the song and each mention the "Hotel California." Around the time the song was written, California was experiencing the highest divorce rate in the nation. Each chorus has lines that remember his past marriage ("Such a lovely place") and his past lover ("Such a lovely face"). The first chorus indicates that there can always be more divorces ("Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here"). The second chorus points out that as a part of divorce you will always "bring your alibis." (thanks, David - Redwood City, CA)
The Hotel California album is #37 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Albums of all time. According to the magazine, Don Henley said that the band was in pursuit of a note perfect song. The Eagles spent 8 months in the studio polishing take after take after take. Henley also said, "We just locked ourselves in. We had a refrigerator, a ping pong table, roller skates and a couple cots. We would go in and stay for 2 or 3 days at a time." (thanks, Ray - Stockton, NJ)
According to a reader-submitted poll for Guitar World magazine, the guitar solo for this song is ranked #8 out of 100. (thanks, Romeo - Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
Don Felder told Gibson.com about his contribution to this track. "I thought it was really unique and different to anything ever written. The Eagles had been heading in a conventional country-rock direction. I was added to the band for my electric guitar, slide-electric ability and to help turn them into more of a rock and roll band. I was writing stronger guitar tracks that used electric guitar like 'Victim of Love' and 'Hotel California.' When I came up with the 'Hotel California' progression, I knew it was unique but didn't know if it was appropriate for the Eagles. It was kind of reggae, almost an abstract guitar part for what was on the radio back then.
When I was writing for the Hotel California album, I was working on a TEAC 4-track in a beach house in Malibu and I was putting down ideas on tape. Then I made cassette copies and gave them to [Don] Henley, [Glenn] Frey, Walsh and [Randy] Meisner. Henley called me to say he really like the Mexican bolero, Mexican reggae song. I knew exactly which track he meant. Don came up with a great lyric concept for the song."
This followed "New Kid in Town" as the second single released from the album. There was no doubt about the song's merits as an album track, but issuing it as a single defied convention. Don Felder told us: "when we finally finished that whole album, the record company had been pounding on the door trying to get in and get this record, because they wanted to release it. We were about four months overdue on delivering our record per our contract. So we finally let the record company in. The execs come in and we had this playback party for them at the record plant here in Los Angeles. And after the song 'Hotel California' played, Henley turned around and said, 'That's going to be our single.'

In the '70s, the AM format, which was what we were really aiming for, had a specific formula; your song had to be between three minutes and three minutes and thirty seconds long, and it had to be a dance track, a rock track, or a trippy ballad. The introduction could only be 30 seconds long before the singer started, so the disc jockey didn't have to speak so long.

'Hotel California' is six and a half minutes long. The introduction to it is a minute long. You can't really dance to it. It stops in the middle when the drums stop: 'mirrors on the ceiling,' that section, and it's got a two minute guitar solo on the end. It's the complete wrong format.

So I said, 'Don, I think you're wrong. I think that's a mistake. I don't think we should put that out as the single. Maybe an FM cut, but not a single.' And he said, 'Nope, that's going to be our single.' And I've never been so delighted to have been so wrong in my life. You just don't know."
In Chicago at the time of this song's popularity many people called the Cook County jail "Hotel California" because it is on California street. The name stuck and now people of all ages and races refer to the jail by this nickname. (thanks, Jesse - Chicago, IL)

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Songfacts Room Full of EyesbyThe Dillinger Escape Plan

Bassist Liam Wilson told The Associated Press about this track: "This song kinda came out of nowhere during rehearsals; like we were momentarily possessed by the spirit of it and once it was unleashed to the studio, the real demons showcased themselves. Full of contrasting and collapsing patterns that grab you and just as quickly kick you to the curb; vocals that interrogate you with good cop/bad cop crooning; and some twisted, Latin-inspired stringed lashings helped make this one the underdog favorites for many of us."

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Songfacts S.A.D.byMark Owen

This song features a vocal contribution from Manchester singer-songwriter Ren Harvieu. Owen told The Sun how the collaboration came about. "I'd been chatting to my hairdresser, telling her about the new record and said I was looking for a lady singer," he explained. "She told me about Ren on Later... With Jools Holland and so I watched it and thought she'd be perfect. I called up her A&R man and her manager got back to me."

"She came to the studio, which was a wonderful moment for me," he continued. "When I was younger I used to watch Doris Day films. I love her films and her songs - my favourite being 'By The Light Of The Silvery Moon.' And Ren was my Doris Day on 'S.A.D.' She's got an amazing voice and sings it so easily. It was a real high point of making this record."

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Songfacts Aerials by System of a Down

This song is about how people can lose their identities and become just like everyone else. Some lyric analysis:
"Life is a waterfall,we're one in the river, one again after the fall." - We all start off the same and we all end up the same.
"Swimming through the void, we hear the words,we lose ourselves, but we find it all." - As we go through life we are told lessons, but we ignore them. We forget who we really are in the mix of seeking the synthetic lifestyle, and that's the price to lose who we really are.
"'Cause we are the ones that wanna play, always want to go, but you never want to stay." - We always want to be part of the scene. We strive for what we want and when we get it, it still does not satisfy.
"And we are the ones that want to choose, always wanna play, but you never wanna lose." - We want and want. We do whatever we can but if trouble is ever near we do whatever we can to maintain innocence.
"When you lose small mind you free your life." - When we stop to see the full picture is when we really have control of our lives.
"Life is a waterfall, we drink from the river then we turn around and put up our walls." - We take and take and in the end we give nothing. This shows how greedy, oblivious and inconsiderate people can be. (thanks, joe - visa, CA)
The final track on the Toxicity album and the third single. The lyrics were written by Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian. Malakian wrote the music. (thanks, Nick - Paramus, NJ)
On the CD, right after the song ends, another song called "Arto" comes on. "Arto" is based on a traditional Armenian song with a chant that is played at funerals in the Armenian community. It is named "Arto" because their friend Arto Tuncboyaciyan played a duduk (a reed instrument similar to an oboe) on the track. Daron and Serj's grandparents both wept when they heard it. (thanks, Anthony - Willow Wood, OH)
Daron Malakian once said that this song is about the beauty of retarded children and how they see the world. They have also said that it is about nothing. (thanks, Ankabandoodoo - lala, MT)
The band performed this on Saturday Night Live in 2005. The first song they performed, "B.Y.O.B.," caused some controversy because they swore on the air.

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