15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)
![15 Of Our Favorite Songs (Have Surprising Backstories)](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/7/788797_320x180.jpg)
What's your favorite song? It's a tough question to answer, but we all have one (or several) tunes that make us feel good no matter what. Whether it's an old standby that never fails to put a smile on our face or a new track that we can't get enough of, there's just something special about our favorite songs. We love listening to them, singing along with them, and dancing to them whenever and wherever we can.
Do you have a favorite song? If you do, there's a good chance that the backstory to how the song was written is far different than what you expected. Some of the most popular songs in history were created entirely by accident, while others were born out of heartbreak or lost love. Whatever the reason, these stories make for interesting reading.
So check out this list of favorite songs and their surprising backstories!
Bring you popcorn and coke because this one is a doozy…
![Billie Jean almost got Michael Jackson killed. Jackson was so absorbed in the song, working on it in his head while driving, that he didn't notice his car was on fire. Someone on a bike had to point it out to him.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/6/788786.jpg)
Source: Moonwalk: A Memoir, by Michael Jackson (via Google Books)
![Keith Richards literally composed (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction in his sleep. Richards woke up in the middle of the night, recorded about 30 seconds of the song on a tape recorder, and then fell back asleep. In the morning he didn't remember any of it, until he played the recording.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/2/788792.jpg)
![Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah became big because of Shrek. The song went mostly underappreciated for years, even as other artists kept covering it, until a version of it was used in a movie about an ogre, a princess, and a donkey. Then it started popping up everywhere.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/3/788783.jpg)
Source: The Atlantic
![Dolly Parton's Jolene was a real woman. Parton kept teasing her husband about a red-headed bank teller who gave him a lot of attention (Her name wasn't Jolene, though that name came from a little girl Parton met while signing autographs.)](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/9/0/788890.jpg)
Source: NPR
![The Beach Boys' Never Learn Not to Love was written by Charles Manson. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson was close with Manson, until the band reworked and recorded one of his songs without crediting him. Manson was furious. Considering the Family's victims were murdered over much less that that, the Boys got off easy.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/0/788790.jpg)
Source: RadarOnline
![Katy Perry's Firework was inspired by Beat novelist Jack Kerouac. The only people for me are the mad ones burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars... Perry knew this quote from On The Road through her boyfriend at the time, comedian and Kerouac aficionado Russell Brand.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/1/788791.jpg)
Sources: Billboard, The Beat Museum
![Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name was a different song (by Bonnie Tyler). Tyler's If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) didn't do as well as songwriter Desmond Child expected SO he rewrote the lyrics, changed the song's title, and gave it to someone else to prove it could be a hit.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/7/788787.jpg)
Source: Unknown Original
![Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline is named after JFK's daughter. Diamond needed a three-syllable name to fit the song he was writing. Then he remembered a photo of 7-year-old Caroline Kennedy he had seen in a magazine.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/8/788788.jpg)
![Puff, the Magic Dragon has nothing to do with drugs. Leonard Lipton, who wrote the poem the song was based on, is sick of people asking him if it's really about smoking pot. He swears it's a straightforward children's tale, and that advocating marijuana for little kids is not a good thing.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/5/788785.jpg)
Source: LA Weekly
![The dude in Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady) is Vince Neil of Motley Crue. According to songwriter Desmond Child, the song was born when the band went into a club and saw a woman with teased- up platinum mullet and black nails and porcelain skin and jewelry and with a curvy waist -who turned out to be Neil.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/4/788784.jpg)
Source: Rock Celebrities
![Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine began as a dumb joke. During a jam session, Slash started making faces while playing a silly melody. The other band members liked the tune and ran with it. Within an hour my guitar exercise had become something else, Slash wrote.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/4/788794.jpg)
Source: The Music Universe
![CRACKED.COM Metallica's Nothing Else Matters came from thoughtless guitar fingering. Some people doodle on paper while on the phone. James Hetfield randomly plucked at his guitar's strings while talking to his girlfriend. That pattern became the song's opening bars.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/9/1/788891.jpg)
Source: Metallica Wiki
![The Beastie Boys' (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)' was supposed to be a parody. The Beasties were poking fun at 1980's frat culture. Except that no one got the joke, and the song was adopted as an anthem celebrating the kind of debauchery, it was sending up.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/8/9/788889.jpg)
Source: Far Out Magazine
![Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water recounts a real tragedy. The story in the lyrics actually happened - the band was in Montreux, Switzerland, when some stupid with a flare gun burned down the casino where they were supposed to record an album using a mobile studio.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/8/2/788782.jpg)
Source: Albany Herald
![Paul McCartney was afraid he was plagiarizing Yesterday. After dreaming up the melody, McCartney wasn't sure it was actually his creation. For a time he went around asking people in the business if they had heard it before. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it, he said.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/7/9/6/788796.jpg)
Source: Ultimate Classic Rock