There is something to be said for a musician that can go into a recording studio and meticulously craft a hit. It’s often the inspiration behind the chord structure and lyrics that truly excites fans and keeps a song in rotation for decades. But, that sort of intentional writing isn’t always the case. Sometimes, hit songs are stumbled upon in the studio as a result of a happy accident. That was the case for the five songs on this list.
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Learn how these songs came to be below.
1. “Sweet Child of Mine” (Guns N’ Roses)
“Sweet Child of Mine” seems so tailor-made to take Guns N’ Roses to insurmountable heights of fame that it’s almost unfathomable that it started out as a joke. Slash is a riff machine. His skill in that arena is well-documented, but perhaps his most famous contribution to the rock scene was born out of his playing around before a rehearsal. In Slash’s mind, he was playing a riff that emulated the classic circus melody, “doo-doo-doo-da-da-da-da-doo-doo-doo.” To the rest of the band, he was playing the opening to their next hit.
By the time frontman Axl Rose started writing down lyrics to go with the riff, it was too late for Slash to explain that he was just playing around.
2. “Rock and Roll” (Led Zeppelin)
“Rock and Roll” is one of the most free-spirited, uninhibited songs in Led Zeppelin’s catalog—and for good reason. The Led Zeppelin IV track was the product of a jam session of Little Richard’s “Keep a Knockin” between the band members. Luckily, someone behind the soundboard had the forethought to press record, resulting in one of Zeppelin’s most influential tracks.
3. “Under the Bridge” (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
“Under the Bridge” sticks out in Red Hot Chili Peppers’ discography. In the expanse of their funky bangers, “Under the Bridge” is a departing slow jam. Despite being a change of pace for the group, it became one of their biggest hits.
“Under the Bridge” was far from a calculated move on RHCP’s part. In fact, the song was never meant to be released. While snooping through Anthony Keidis’ notebook, producer, and expert thought-provoker Rick Rubin found a poem of the same name about the frontman’s struggle with addiction. Rubin urged the band to move forward with the idea despite their trepidations of it straying too far away from their name-making sound.
His rifling paid off and “Under the Bridge” became the enduring hit it is today.
4. “Smells like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)
Kurt Cobain wrote “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as an anthem for the anti-establishment youth in the ’90s, but the onus behind the title is far less lofty. As the story goes, Bikini Kills’ (a fellow alt-rock group of the era) Kathleen Hanna, and Toby Vail had an inside joke running between the two of them about the deodorant Teen Spirit, which was marketed to young girls.
One night while hanging out with Cobain and Dave Grohl, the foursome got quite drunk. Hanna and Vail wrote the phrase “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on the wall in Sharpie. When Cobain saw the phrase the next morning he thought it held a deeper meaning and ran with it as the inspiration behind Nirvana’s breakout hit.
5. “Nothing Else Matters” (Metallica)
The guitar trill in “Nothing Else Matters” started as the idle musing of James Hetfield. While he was on the phone at home, the frontman plucked away at his guitar creating the framework for what the riff would become. He began to flesh out a song but never intended to release it under the Metallica banner.
Lars Ulrich then heard the riff and urged Hetfield to run with it. Luckily, he listened to the drummer and the song quickly launched them into a whole new tier of superstardom.
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