How the Song Came to Be
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

ELO’s ‘Don’t Bring Me Down… Bruce!’

Most classic rock acts have a misheard lyric. It goes with the territory. So what did Jeff Lynne do when concert audiences started singing along to his big hit?

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Barry McGuire vs. Barry Sadler: When the News Hit #1

One chart-topper listed complaints about the inequities and horrors of the day, while the other was a patriotic paean to the Army’s elite special forces.

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

‘Brandy’ by Looking Glass (It’s a Fine Song)

For one week only, in the summer of 1972, it was the best-selling, most often played single in the United States of America.

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Dr. Hook ‘Cover of the Rolling Stone’

A band records a song about its burning desire to make it to the cover of the leading music magazine. We’ve got the backstory. Do you know who wrote it?

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Beatles’ Forgotten Top 20 Hit: A ‘Sweet’ Story

A top 20 hit in the U.S., yet it has received virtually no radio airplay in decades and is almost never mentioned in accounts of the band’s early days.

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

A-Ha Reinterprets ‘Take on Me’ With 2 New Versions

A song you’ve heard countless times; its 1985 video has an astonishing number of views on YouTube. A touching acoustic version transforms the song

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’: Behind the Song

The composer of one of the greatest countercultural anthems never made it to the festival that served as the song’s subject.

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

John Fogerty Talks About Writing ‘Proud Mary’

50 years after he began writing one of his most-beloved songs, the musician shared how he first started writing it and how the title came to be

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s Incendiary “Fire”

He took the title of his one hit seriously, even putting flaming items on his head while he performed. But he never made the charts again after his 1968 smash.

Read More
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Pete Townshend’s ‘Teenage Wasteland’

For years, he worked on an ambitious project called Lifehouse. It was intended to be another rock opera and a logical follow-up to Tommy. This song evolved into “Baba O’Riley”

Read More