It’s difficult to believe we could ever tire of our favorite song, but it’s even harder to fathom that tune becoming a torment to the artists who play it. However, it happens.
Videos by American Songwriter
Some musicians have that one song in their repertoire that makes their blood boil even if it’s their biggest hit or the release that put them on the map. It could simply be overplayed, it could overshadow progress, or maybe it just didn’t age well. Whatever the reason, sometimes artists grow to hate their own biggest hit.
1. “Cherry Pie” – Warrant
Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” is an instant earworm, one that began to rub the ’80s glam metal band the wrong way after a while, especially frontman and songwriter Jani Lane. In an interview with BAM magazine (via Songfacts), he called the song “a blessing and a curse,” adding, “I had fun writing it, all 20 minutes. And I had fun singing it. Unfortunately, the song rubbed some people the wrong way. And, of course, the whole title got out of control. It became the album title, the first video… Cherry Pie this, Cherry Pie that. I had fun recording the tune, but it’s probably the last of its type in our repertoire.”
He went on to elaborate on his discontent with the raucous hit in an interview with VH1, saying, “My legacy is ‘Cherry Pie.’ Everything about me is ‘Cherry Pie.’ I’m the ‘Cherry Pie’ guy. I could shoot myself in the fucking head for writing that song.”
2. “Pinball Wizard” – The Who
From the very beginning, The Who’s Pete Townshend disliked the band’s Tommy hit, “Pinball Wizard,” and he was the one who wrote it. “I knocked it off,” he once said of the song. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God this is awful, the most clumsy piece of writing I’ve ever done. Oh my God, I’m embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song. I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on.”
The song has remained one of the musician’s greatest hates, but a greatest hit among The Who’s catalog.
3. “Wonderwall” – Oasis
While he has since stated it has grown on him, Oasis’s lead singer Liam Gallagher once despised the band’s biggest hit, “Wonderwall.” “I can’t fucking stand that fucking song!” he has been quoted saying (via Songfacts). “Every time I have to sing it I want to gag.”
However, he is starting to change his tune. “That used to do my head in, that tune,” he admitted recently to LADBible. “I’ve only started to come around to it again as I’ve got older.”
4. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Guns N’ Roses
While a favorite among fans, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is not as beloved by the members of Guns N’ Roses, each for different reasons.
Frontman Axl Rose didn’t care for the radio edit of the song when it was first released and began gaining traction on the airwaves. “I hate the edit of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine,'” he told Rolling Stone. “Radio stations said, ‘Well, your vocals aren’t cut.’ My favorite part of the song is Slash’s slow solo; it’s the heaviest part for me. There’s no reason for it to be missing except to create more space for commercials, so the radio station owners can get more advertising dollars. When you get the chopped version of ‘Paradise City’ or half of ‘Sweet Child’ and ‘Patience’ cut, you’re getting screwed.”
Slash has since grown to appreciate the tune, but for years, he could have done without it. It showed a softer side of the band, something that didn’t fit in with the rock and roll image. “You know what happens is you come up with something you think is cool, but how it’s going to translate to other people, you never know,” Slash once explained. “I was the guy who initially was not a big fan of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ back in the day. That was more not because of the riff, it was really more about the type of song it was at the time.”
5. “Brass in Pocket” – The Pretenders
When The Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde first penned and recorded the band’s well-loved hit, “Brass in Pocket,” the last thing she wanted to do was release the song to the public, reportedly telling her producer he could release it “over my dead body.”
“I hated it!” she told Creem in a 1981 interview (via Songfacts). “It was a phenomenon that evades me completely. I was honestly very disappointed it was such a big hit – I was embarrassed by it.”
6. “Creep” – Radiohead
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke despises the song that first put the band on the map, going as far as the nickname “Crap” instead.
The song was inescapable during their fledgling days of fame. “We seemed to be living out the same four and a half minutes of our lives over and over again,” the band’s guitarist Johnny Greenwood once explained, adding, “It was incredibly stultifying.”
Back then, it seemed like everyone came out to the band’s shows just to hear “Creep.” During one gig in Montreal, Yorke shut the audience down, shouting into the crowd, “Fuck off, we’re tired of it.”
7. “Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin
It doesn’t get much better than rock’s Mona Lisa: “Stairway to Heaven.” Led Zeppelin’s lead vocalist Robert Plant would beg to differ.
When it was first released in 1971, “Stairway to Heaven” became a concert staple, and, in turn, became Plant’s direct route to hell. “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show,” Plant reflected on the hit years later.
His bandmate guitarist Jimmy Page, however, saw it as fans did and still do today, as a masterpiece. “To me, I thought ‘Stairway’ crystallized the essence of the band,” he shared in an interview with Rolling Stone. “It had everything there and showed the band at its best… as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there.”
8. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” – Nirvana
Nirvana, and its frontman Kurt Cobain especially, never sought out fame, but it fell fast and hard into the band’s unsuspecting lap with the release of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The angst-fueled rallying cry would become synonymous with the grunge rockers, but that wasn’t something they necessarily welcomed.
“Everyone has focused on that song so much,” Cobain said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “The reason it gets a big reaction is people have seen it on MTV a million times. It’s been pounded into their brains. But I think there are so many other songs that I’ve written that are as good, if not better than that song.”
He offered up the often overshadowed “Drain You” as an example before he continued with “But I can barely, especially on a bad night like tonight, get through “Teen Spirit.” I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can’t pretend to have a good time playing it.”
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
