Once a song is released to the public, it’s unchangeable. Of course, you could release remixes and rewrites, but the original will stick around for comparison. Most artists come to terms with that reality, however, a fair few have publicly regretted their songwriting. Find three such artists, below.
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1. “When I’m Sixty Four” – The Beatles
“When I’m Sixty Four” is one of McCartney’s best efforts while with the Beatles. One of the most beloved if nothing else. Despite that, McCartney had a small qualm with the track: that 64 is far too young to be dealing with the issues he is singing about.
“It was really an arbitrary number when I wrote [‘When I’m Sixty Four’],” McCartney once explained. “I probably should have called it ‘When I’m 65,’ which is the retirement age in England. And the rhyme would have been easy, ‘something, something alive when I’m 65.’ But it felt too predictable. It sounded better to say 64.”
“I met someone who plays piano in an old persons’ home, and he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I play some of your songs, and the most popular one is ‘When I’m Sixty Four,’ but I have to change the title to ‘When I’m 84’ because 64 seems young to those people,” he added elsewhere. “They don’t get it’…If I were to write it now, I’d probably call it ‘When I’m 94.’”
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four
You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you
2. “Heart of Gold” – Neil Young
There is nothing wrong with Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” In fact, it was so well received that it became a certified hit for the folk icon. Where Young feels he went wrong with this track was making it too accessible to the listening public.
Like a true mainstay of the counter-culture, Young regretted the fame this song brought him. He once, rather covertly, spoke about his regret surrounding “Heart of Gold.”
“This song put me in the middle of the road,” Young once said. “Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.”
I’ve been to Hollywood
I’ve been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean
For a heart of gold
I’ve been in my mind
It’s such a fine line
That keeps me searching
For a heart of gold
And I’m getting old
3. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – Billy Joel
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a controversial track. Some people love it, others hate it. It’s a fact that Billy Joel knows quite well. Though he doesn’t understand those that hate it, he does admit he’s not overly thrilled with the musical composition of the song.
“I mean, I hate the music, because it’s not good,” Joel once said. “But I think the lyrics are fairly clever, I think I did a pretty good job with the words, but some people just hate that thing.”
“I wrote the words first, which is why the music is so horrible in that song,” he added. “I usually write the music first and then I write the lyrics, but in that song, the melody…it’s like a mosquito buzzing around your head! It’s more annoying than musical.”
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
(Photo by Medios y Media/Getty Images)
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