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Layla: The Love Song Eric Clapton Stole From a Persian Poet — and the Guitarist Who Made It Immortal
Layla: The Love Song Eric Clapton Stole From a Persian Poet — and the Guitarist Who Made It Immortal In the summer of 1970, Eric Clapton was the most famous guitar player in the world and the most miserable man in rock. He had been through Cream — the first supergroup, the band that invented…
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Hold Me Closer: How ‘Tiny Dancer’ Flopped in 1972 and Became Elton John’s Most Beloved Song
Hold Me Closer: How “Tiny Dancer” Flopped in 1972 and Became Elton John’s Most Beloved Song In the fall of 1970, a twenty-year-old English lyricist named Bernie Taupin walked out into the California sunshine and felt the world tilt. He had grown up in the flat, gray farmlands of Lincolnshire, where rock and roll arrived…
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The Morning the Clouds Parted: How Jeff Lynne Wrote ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ in a Swiss Chalet
The Morning the Clouds Parted: How Jeff Lynne Wrote “Mr. Blue Sky” in a Swiss Chalet In the spring of 1977, Jeff Lynne locked himself in a chalet in the Swiss Alps with a guitar, an electric piano, and a deadline. He had four weeks to write a double album — the follow-up to one…
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September: The Song Built on Three Nonsense Syllables
September: The Song Built on Three Nonsense Syllables Every year on September 21st, the internet does the same thing. Memes bloom like fireworks. Playlists get dusted off. Radio stations run countdowns. Millions of people who haven’t thought about Earth, Wind & Fire in months suddenly need to hear a song — need to sing three…
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You Can Check Out Any Time You Like: The Making of the Eagles’ \”Hotel California\
You Can Check Out Any Time You Like: The Making of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” It is the most argued-over song in rock history. Ask ten fans what “Hotel California” is about and you’ll get ten answers: a haunted hotel, a bad acid trip, a satanic ritual, a mental institution, the music business, the state…
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Hungry Like the Wolf: The Saturday Song That Ate America
Hungry Like the Wolf: The Saturday Song That Ate America In the summer of 1982, a cable television network barely a year old was playing a music video four times a day. It showed a pop star in a linen suit hacking through a Sri Lankan jungle, chasing a tiger-woman through temples and rivers while…
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Eight Minutes and Forty-Two Seconds: How Don McLean Turned the Day the Music Died Into ‘American Pie’
Eight Minutes and Forty-Two Seconds: How Don McLean Turned the Day the Music Died Into “American Pie” On the morning of February 4, 1959, a thirteen-year-old paperboy in New Rochelle, New York, was folding his stack of morning newspapers when a headline stopped him cold. A small plane had gone down in a cornfield outside…
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That Ain’t Workin’: How a Deliveryman’s Rant Became Dire Straits’ Only American Number One
That Ain’t Workin’: How a Deliveryman’s Rant Became Dire Straits’ Only American Number One The most famous music video of the 1980s opens with two blocky, computer-drawn workmen — all right angles and pixelated frowns — complaining about their lives while a wall of televisions plays rock stars at them. Then a voice cuts through,…
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Four Voices, One Cause: How \”That’s What Friends Are For\” Turned Friendship Into Millions for AIDS Research
Four Voices, One Cause: How “That’s What Friends Are For” Turned Friendship Into Millions for AIDS Research Picture the scene: a recording studio in Hollywood, 1985. Dionne Warwick is at the microphone, laying down a vocal on a sweet, unassuming ballad. Stevie Wonder is due in to add his part — Warwick has asked him…
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\”Heroes\”: The Kiss by the Berlin Wall That Became an Anthem
“Heroes”: The Kiss by the Berlin Wall That Became an Anthem In the summer of 1977, David Bowie stood at a window in Hansa Studio 2 in West Berlin, struggling with a lyric. The studio — a converted old concert hall that the Gestapo had once used as a ballroom — sat a half block…