Recording music isn’t always easy, or even fun. In fact, some the best of the best in rock music have struggled occasionally to get songs and whole albums out into the world. Let’s look at just a few times some of the biggest names in rock music had a hard time recording songs!
1. “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin released their famed untitled fourth album back in 1971, which contains a number of legendary hits like “Stairway To Heaven”. “Black Dog” is another standout track on that record, and it was also a huge pain for the band to record.
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Anyone could listen to “Black Dog” and recognize that it’s a complex piece of work. John Paul Jones is at the center of the track with his riff, but the rest of the band had a hard time sticking to the song’s unique rhythm. They almost gave the song the axe, but thankfully fixed it up with John Bonham in post.
2. “The Long Run” by Eagles
It’s common for bands to have a hard time recording songs, especially if they have big shoes to fill. Hotel California was a hard one to follow up, especially after a harrowing tour, but the Eagles did their best with The Long Run. However, the band struggled to finish the album, including the title track.
Drug use had taken its toll on many of the band members by the time they hit the studio. Writing songs was suddenly quite difficult. Eagles fondly nicknamed “The Long Run” as “The Long One”, a reference to how long it took to get the dang thing done.
3. “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac
The whole of Rumours took a while to produce, but few songs were as big of a pain to finish as “Never Going Back Again”. Lindsey Buckingham penned this tune about his relationship with Stevie Nicks falling apart, and it took hours for him to perfect the patterns, lyrics, and arrangements in the song.
Sadly, by the time Buckingham finalized a version he liked, the key was too high for him to sing in. Buckingham insisted that the band re-record the whole album so that “Never Going Back Again” wouldn’t sound too slow by comparison. It ended up being the right call, though.
4. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen
Queen often had a hard time recording songs, but “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the kind of masterpiece that should take a little bit of elbow grease to get done. The legendary rock anthem took months to record in full and actually contains three mini-songs, all of which give the final track that operatic vibe.
The band recorded over the master tape of “Bohemian Rhapsody” so often that it wore down to an almost colorless shell of what it once was. It’s kind of a miracle that it even survived.
Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
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