-
Je T'Aime ... Moi Non Plus
Serge Gainsbourg originally recorded this scandalous song, erotic moaning and all, as a duet with Brigitte Bardot. Understandably, the sultry screen star's husband strongly objected, and that version went unreleased for two decades. Remade with British actress Jane Birkin, it reached Number One in the U.K., despite (or perhaps because of) a BBC radio ban. […]
- Music
- By
-
Brown Sugar
According to Keith Richards, this outrageous ode to a black fantasy goddess was the first song for which Mick Jagger composed the main riff. Jagger came up with the concept, slave ship imagery and all — most likely inspired by his affair with African-American singer Claudia Lennear — while in the Australian outback filming Ned […]
- Music
- By
-
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
"Satisfaction" begins its musical and lyrical assault on the senses with what can be called, with little argument, the most iconic guitar riff of 1960s rock. What's most remarkable is that Keith Richards literally wrote that intro in his sleep. "I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a cassette recorder next […]
- Music
- By
-
Love Will Tear Us Apart
This haunting ode to romantic melancholia was the crowning moment in Joy Division's brief career, but Ian Curtis wasn't around to savor its success. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was released just prior to the British postpunk group's 23-year-old frontman hanging himself two days before the band's scheduled first U.S. tour. "Ian's influence seemed to […]
- Music
- By
-
Loser
In 1992, 22-year-old Beck Hansen was scraping by as a video-store clerk while performing “anti-folk” songs at L.A. coffeehouses. During that year, he cut “Loser” in the kitchen of onetime Geto Boys producer Karl Stephenson. The song became the centerpiece of his major-label debut album, 1994's Mellow Gold, which cost $200 to make. But the […]
- Music
- By
-
Personal Jesus
Depeche Mode's breakthrough single in the U.S. was based on a surprising source: Priscilla Presley's 1985 biography Elvis and Me. “It's about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships,” Martin Gore, the song's composer, said. “How everybody's heart is like a god in some way, and […]
- Music
- By
-
Okie From Muskogee
Did Merle Haggard really mean it when he lambasted the Woodstock generation while upholding small-town Southern values? In 1971, he claimed the song’s reactionary stance started out as a joke: While he and his band were driving through the Oklahoma town of the song’s title, he sang out what would become the song’s opening line […]
- Music
- By
-
Sweet Home Alabama
Ronnie Van Zant sang this pissed-off answer (“A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow”) to Neil Young's anti-Dixie diatribe “Southern Man” (“Southern change gonna come at last/Now your crosses are burning fast),” and even Young loved it. “I'd rather play 'Sweet Home Alabama' than 'Southern Man' anytime,” Young said. The admiration was mutual; Van […]
- Music
- By
-
Maggie May
Rod Stewart plays a schoolboy in love with an older temptress in “Maggie May” (“The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age”) — he claimed it was “more or less a true story about the first woman I had sex with.” The song, a last-minute addition to Every Picture Tells a […]
- Music
- By
-
Umbrella
The digital release of “Umbrella” had the biggest debut in the history of iTunes, but it was almost Britney Spears who got to sing this worldwide Number One song, “ella-ella-ella” hook and all. With Spears’ career spiraling out of control at the time, songwriter and co-producer The-Dream said, “We thought, 'Let's save our friend.' ” But […]
- Music
- By