In some situations, good things take time, but that’s not always the case for our favorite rock songs. Here are some popular tunes from the 80s that you definitely know. But what you probably didn’t know is that they were written in under an hour.
“(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” by The Beastie Boys
This song was released as a single for the Beastie Boys‘ debut album, Licensed To III. Initially, it was meant to mock the “party” themed songs that were popular at the time. “Fight For Your Right” took under five minutes to complete.
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“It was summer 1986,” Mike D once explained of the song. “We wrote it in about five minutes. 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 [expletive] lacy tables.”
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen
Released at the end of 1979, this Queen hit was written in about “5 to 10 minutes,” as Freddie Mercury told Melody Maker. Apparently, Mercury didn’t know many guitar chords, which was actually helpful in writing this one.
“I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords,” he explained. “It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.”
“Every Breath You Take” by The Police
For Sting, writing this No. 1 hit was pretty spontaneous. Apparently, as he told The Independent, he woke up in the middle of the night with the song’s title in mind, and the rest was history.
“I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head,” he explained. “Sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is…”
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Picture taken in 1974 in Stockholm shows the Swedish pop group Abba with its members (L-R) Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus posing after winning the Swedish branch of the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Waterloo". – Sweden's legendary disco group ABBA announced on April 27, 2018 that they have reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after their last single. The quartet split up in 1982 after dominating the disco scene for more than a decade with hits like "Waterloo", "Dancing Queen", "Mamma Mia" and "Super Trouper". (Photo by Olle LINDEBORG / TT News Agency / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo credit should read OLLE LINDEBORG/AFP via Getty Images) -
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