15 Backstories For Famous Songs You Have Stuck In Your Head

A musician wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, a new hit song bursting forth from the folds of their subconscious mind. They race for anything to make the ethereal creativity manifest in the real world-- A pen and paper, a recorder, anything. Then, in the morning, they head off to record the song and people are singing it in their cars the world over. 

That, of course, isn't how it works… Well, except for the times when it is. 

Songs have many different interesting journeys from conception to recording, and below are some of our favorites. There's everything from the aforementioned middle of the night lightning bolts of brilliance, stoned out jam sessions between studio musicians, and sadly posthumous masterpieces. No matter how they end up getting here, the result for a truly great pop song is the same… Us, annoyed in the shower, trying to get an earworm out of our brains.