For many people, these songs have struck a chord. Surprisingly, though, they don’t get that same amount of love from the people who wrote them. Here are three super successful massive hits. Their own singers don’t always get the surrounding hype, but we’re still big fans.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is one of the best-selling songs of all time, but it wasn’t necessarily Kurt Cobain‘s favorite of all the songs he’d written.
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“Everyone has focused on that song so much,” Cobain told Rolling Stone of “Teen Spirit”. “The reason it gets a big reaction is people have seen it on MTV a million times. It’s been pounded into their brains. But I think there are so many other songs that I’ve written that are as good, if not better, than that song, like ‘Drain You’. That’s definitely as good as ‘Teen Spirit.’ I love the lyrics, and I never get tired of playing it. Maybe if it was as big as ‘Teen Spirit’, I wouldn’t like it as much.”
“We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel
Even though this Joel song is easily one of the most referenced in his catalog, he’s admitted in the past that he thinks its melody could be better.
“I know people love it and some people hate it,” Joel told iHeart. “Melodically, it’s not the best tune I ever wrote.”
He continued, saying, “I wrote the words first, which is why the music is not all that melodic. I thought the words were clever. You know I did it in chronological order. It starts in 1949, it goes to ’89. Of course, since 1989, there’s been enough news to write a couple of these things. But you know, once I did it once, that was enough.”
“Creep” by Radiohead
“Creep” might be Radiohead’s magnum opus to some of their fans, but that’s not necessarily how lead singer Thom Yorke feels about the song.
“I wasn’t very happy with the lyrics; I thought they were pretty crap,” lead singer Yorke admitted to Rolling Stone in 1993. In that same interview, he went on to say, “It’s like it’s not our song anymore; when we play it, it feels like we’re doing a cover.”
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