3 Hit Songs That Started as Scribbles on Napkins

Some of the best ideas have humble beginnings, and that also goes for some of the biggest hits. From Elton John to Garth Brooks, here are three famous songs that started with a napkin and a dream.

“Your Song” by Elton John

Elton John’s “Your Song” is perhaps the most famous example of a song that started with a napkin. One with “tea stains” on it, in fact, as Bernie Taupin told The Independent.

“The original lyric was written very rapidly on the kitchen table of Elton’s mother’s [house] in Northwood Hills in the suburbs of London, if I recall, on a particularly grubby piece of exercise paper,” Taupin explained to the magazine.

“(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” by Beastie Boys

This hip-hop/rock song is still one of Beastie Boys’ best songs. It’s also one of our favorite party anthems to this day. As one would hope, “Fight For Your Right” was written while the boys were out for drinks.

“We wrote it in about five minutes,” Beastie Boy Mike D. explained of the song to Penthouse Magazine. “We were in the Palladium with Rick Rubin, drinking vodka and grapefruit juice, and ‘Fight for Your Right’ was written in the Michael Todd Room on napkins on top of those s—- lacy tables. I remember we made a point there of like, ‘Look, we gotta get s— done,’ and we sat at one table, really determined to accomplish something. It was just like it is now, trying to fit everything in.”

“Friends In Low Places” by Garth Brooks

This Garth Brooks hit’s origin story starts when songwriters Dewayne Blackwell and Earl Bud Lee went out for a drink, and realized they couldn’t pay the tab. That’s when Lee whipped out the phrase—”I’ve got friends in low places“—referring to someone he knew who worked at the restaurant.

A few months later, the phrase came to mind while the songwriters were at another writer’s No. 1 party. Subsequently, they ended up scribbling most of the song’s idea on a napkin.

Photo by: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images