Even the musicians who wrote the three rock songs below can’t fully tell you where they came from. Something about these tracks was inexplicable. Whether by dreams or some higher power, these songs were the result of otherworldly forces.
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“Something” — The Beatles
George Harrison always had to compete with the powerhouse duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The one time he unarguably beat them was with the simple ballad “Something”. One of the most beautiful rock songs ever, Harrison once said it fell out of thin air. Even he couldn’t explain how this masterful song fell into his lap.
Harrison claimed that this song just kind of happened. The first lyrics he thought of were the final product, pouring out of him in a turn of fate. “Something in the way she moves / Attracts me like no other lover / Something in the way she woos me / I don’t want to leave her now,” the lyrics read. It’s hard to believe this song wasn’t the product of careful songwriting, but that arguably makes it even more impressive.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” — The Rolling Stones
The guitar work on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” famously came to Keith Richards in a dream. Waking up in a hotel room in Florida, Richards found the title line of this rock song and his titular riff before falling back asleep. Like a bolt of lightning from a higher power, this classic rock hit was inexplicable.
The band was then able to build from Richards’ foundation, adding context to the title. “When I’m driving in my car / And the man comes on the radio / And he’s tellin’ me more and more / ‘Bout some useless information / Supposed to fire my imagination,” the lyrics read. Without Richards’ fateful dream, this song would’ve never become what it is.
“Stairway To Heaven” — Led Zeppelin
While the instrumentation of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Stairway To Heaven” was the result of a concentrated writing process, the lyrics were mystifying. Robert Plant recalls experiencing automatic writing while jotting down ideas for this song. Without thinking, his hand just started writing the lyrics we all know and cherish today.
The line “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold / And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven / When she gets there, she knows if the stores are all closed / With a word, she can get what she came for,” apparently came to Plant from somewhere else. A song this powerful would have an inexplicable source.
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