Earning a hit song is a double-edged sword. You want the hit to keep your career going, but then you’re stuck with the song forever. Inevitably, it will start to grate on you after playing it for the nth time. While most bands maintain appearances for the sake of their fans, never revealing their true feelings about a song they dislike, others are more forthcoming. The three rock songs below are despised by the musicians who have to play them live, but the audience refuses to let them leave the rotation.
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“Wonderwall” (Oasis)
Oasis‘s “Wonderwall” can be overexposed for most people’s tastes, but imagine you’re the band and you have to play that song every night on tour for years. How annoying would “Today is gonna be the day…” be to you then?
Fans adore “Wonderwall.” It’s an iconic rock song for a reason, and it will always have a spot in the Gallagher brothers’ setlists. But Noel Gallagher, in particular, has spoken about how annoying it is to play live. He once said he wished he could go back and change the band’s “calling card.”
“I don’t particularly like that song,” Gallagher once said of “Wonderwall”, and added elsewhere, “Wonderwall’ is one of my least favorite songs because it’s not finished. If I could somehow twist time and go back there, I’d probably pick a different song for our calling card. Probably ‘Some Might Say.’”
[RELATED: The Meaning Behind the Oasis Song That May Be as Good as “Wonderwall”]
“Stairway to Heaven” (Led Zeppelin)
Led Zeppelin‘s “Stairway to Heaven” is an indispensable rock song. It would be a crime to see Robert Plant sing live and not get at least a snippet of this ballad. Nevertheless, the band didn’t always play this song live. It was omitted periodically from their setlists. According to Plant, playing “Stairway to Heaven” every night would’ve worn him out.
“I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show,” Plant once said.
While Plant has made his aversions clear, his writing partner Jimmy Page has taken the opposite stance.
“It was a milestone for us,” Jimmy Page once said. “Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with ‘Stairway.’”
“Creep” (Radiohead)
Radiohead‘s “Creep” is one of the most famous examples of a band hating their hit. This track was undeniably the band’s most digestible song. As such, it earned them major radio play, but it also hurt their artistic credibility—at least that was Thom Yorke’s opinion.
“I wasn’t very happy with the lyrics; I thought they were pretty crap,” Yorke once said of “Creep”.
His distaste for “Creep” didn’t stop the band from playing the rock song altogether, but it got it cut from the setlist on several occasions.
“We only did it once or twice this year,” he added. “The first time I’m feeling the fakes we’ll stop. It can be cool sometimes, but other times I want to stop halfway through and be like, ‘Nah, this isn’t happening.’”
(Photo by Bob Berg/Getty Images)
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