Entertainment For Lively Minds
Steady - I'M the boss!
Posted by Jeremy on 18 June 2009 - 10:31pm.
Guess how annoying it must be for a band's accepted leader to see the bass player or something just go and write the band's biggest hit.
Take for example Bryan MacLean unsurping Arthur Lee with Alone Again Or, arguably Love's best known tune.
Or Colin Moulding trumping chief XTC songsmith Andy Partridge with Making Plans For Nigel.
Other examples could include The Strawbs' Hudson-Ford beating Dave Cousins chart placings with Part Of The Union or Rod Clements penning Meet Me On The Corner for Lindisfarne - normally Alan Hull's songwriting vehicle.
Can any Word readers think of some other examples?
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Something by George Harrison?
Possibly the best tune on Abbey Road. That's a quick one. But my brain's gone blank now...
Didn't Bill Berry
write "Perfect Circle" and "Everybody Hurts"? Maybe he didn't do the lyrics...
He's certainly said to have done the music...
...and also the chords to Man On The Moon.
They claim the only song to be completely written by one member alone is (Don't Go Back To) Rockville, which was written by Mike Mills.
More Bill
And the band has certainly gone down hill since his departure...
Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust'...
written by John Deacon (with more than a little uncredited help from Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers) and providing them with their biggest hit in the USA.
And..
You're My Best Friend, an exquisitely sculpted pop song, plus many others. Queen ceased to be Queen when Freddie Mercury died, but John Deacon politely retiring to reiterate this fact was overlooked by many. If only Brian and Roger had taken the hint...
not an expert on queen
but i've always thought he was the brains behind that band.
the only Queen song
I am prepared to give house room to - and then only on Spotify
More Queeny stuff...
That's a good one - I guess at a pinch we could throw in Roger Taylor aswell with Radio Ga Ga & A Kind of Magic?
Roger Taylor
confess a soft spot for Roger Taylor's "Future Management"
Not their biggest hit but...
the Coxon composed & sung "Coffee and TV" has been the only Blur track to grace R.Zimmerman's Theme Time Radio Hour (as far as I know...) that must have annoyed Damon.
I doubt it...
...Damon sings the chorus and wrote the music.
And gets 50%...
...of all Blur's songwriting PRS, I gather.
Split Enz...
..only started having hits when Neil came on board.
Somebody must mention...
Rock The Casbah. Written by Topper Headon, I believe.
On a related theme
but were the few Mike Nesmith songs he wrote for the Monkees a portent for the way ahead? Who. at the time would have put him ahead of Dolenz and Jones. Tork was clearly always going to be at the back of the class.
Tapioca Tundra
just gorgeous
Barbara Ann
It’s 1965. Brian Wilson is slaving away making ever more elaborate, ornate pop productions like The Little Girl I Once Knew and the Pet Sounds album (that end up selling relatively poorly). Meanwhile The Beach Boys are enjoying one of their biggest and most enduring hits, a goofy singalong cover from a the hastily cobbled together filler album Beach Boys Party with Dean Torrence from Jan & Dean doing the lead vocal and Hal Blaine using ash trays for drums. I don’t suppose Brian Wilson likes Barbara Ann that much.
Light my fire
written by Robbie Krieger, and not Jim Morrison...?
Robbie Krieger
He wrote Touch Me and Love Me Two Times as well.
Some more
I'm not that interested in Razorlight, but I do know that the only song of theirs I've liked, America, was written not by that overconfident popinjay who sings, but by the drummer.
And I wonder how Frankie Valli felt when Oh What A Night, on which he surrendered lead vocal to one of the Other Four Seasons, went on to become one of their most popular hits.
Felicity - Orange Juice
Written by James Kirk, not Edwyn.
I always thought it ironic that a songwriter as good as Kirsty
MacColl should have a Billy Bragg song as one of her biggest hits, and that her biggest hit of all was for someone else, Tracy Ullman. (Kirst's version is much better)
Sinead and Prince
Bit like Sinead O'Connor having her biggest hit with a Prince tune - or maybe not....
Unlikely Drummer tunes
Since I posted this thread there's been two or three drummers mentioned. This has brought to mind a great tune Bill Ward did with Black Sabbath (seriously!) but for the life of me I can't quite recall it's title just now. I seem to remember it being a bit Lennon-ish...
And speaking of Lennon, what about Ringo's brilliant trio of early Seventies singles - It Don't Come Easy, Photograph and Back Off Boogaloo? It's always the quiet ones...