5 Classic Hits That Were Written Shockingly Fast

When we think of an iconic song, our minds often imagine the grueling creative process that our favorite musicians have to undertake in order to produce their masterpiece. More often than not, this is indeed true.

The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t it Be Nice took months of retakes in the studio until it matched up to Brian Wilson’s ideal vision of the song. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody took years from start to finish. At the end of the day, hard work would always yield good results.

However, there have been quite a number of songs that climbed the charts that have reached great success with surprisingly minimal effort. Be it because of the skill of the respective artists or through some happy accident, here are 5 classic hits that were written shockingly fast.

5. Paranoid: Black Sabbath

A song hailed as one of the greatest heavy metal hits of all time, Paranoid was also featured on Rolling Stone Magazine’s greatest songs list. Although created by Black Sabbath, one of the earliest and most iconic heavy metal groups, the band themselves did not envision the success that Paranoid would soon have.

At the time of writing Paranoid, Black Sabbath were more comfortable writing longer and more intricate songs similar to Led Zeppelin. However, producers had requested them to write a shorter song made for radio and the band themselves needed a short filler tune on their latest album. So, after a night out drinking, the group decided to put together a small piece of music.

Tony Iommi fiddled around with his guitar and as if by magic, began to play the song’s now legendary opening riff. Ozzy Osbourne began creating a melody of gibberish and random words while Geezer Butler created the actual lyrics based on his own experiences with depression. Bill Ward claims that the entire track took just around 20 minutes to create with Osbourne going into the booth shortly after, having not even memorized the lyrics.

What was meant to just be a three minute filler soon developed into one of the band’s best songs. Climbing to number 4 on the UK charts, Paranoid soon became an anthem of the heavy metal genre. Paranoid is an example of what 20 minutes of effort can produce when four talented musicians are working together in perfect sync.

4. Crazy Little Thing Called Love: Queen

While Queen is often known for their sophisticated, operatic level hits that require painstaking effort in the studio and long periods of time to produce, they have also shown their ability to take a more minimal approach and make a success out of something more simple.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, Bohemian Rhapsody was a grueling process that took years to accomplish. Crazy Little Thing Called Love however, took just 5–10 minutes. Freddie Mercury wanted to write a song quickly and felt that the best way to do so would be to restrict himself as much as possible in order to follow a strict framework.

So, he decided to write the song on guitar. Mercury admitted that he was not a very talented guitarist and only knew just a few chords. This allowed him to make the most of a limited amount of options and kept his writing process concise by forcing him to stick to the few chords he could play. In around 10 minutes, he had a hit ready.

A tribute to Mercury’s idols Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, Crazy Little Thing Called Love had a distinct rockabilly sound to it and became Queen’s first number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It serves as an example of how a song does not have to be overly elaborate in order to be a success.

3. Your Song: Elton John

Unlike other musicians on this list, Elton John and his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin were very well known for their ability to write songs very quickly. The duo’s creative process was also noticeably different. John would create melodies for lyrics that were already written by Taupin beforehand. Sometimes, John would pick and choose from a set of pre-written lyrics in order to compose a song.

While this process did yield quicker results, Your Song was noticeably fast even for them. Hailed as one of the most heartfelt love songs of all time, Your Song was simple and profound in equal measure. Despite the poignant lyrics that seemed as if it took a lifetime to properly put into words, the entire process of writing Your Song took only around 20–30 minutes.

Happening during an inconspicuous visit to John’s mother’s house, Taupin scribbled down the words on a random piece of paper and then handed it over to John who then went into the next room and created a melody for the lyrics he had just seen. Despite the almost non-existent effort that it took to quickly put this piece together, both men knew that they had a hit.

To this day, Your Song remains one of Elton John’s signature songs and is the template for the ideal love song. It goes to show that if two people are talented enough and have good enough chemistry with one another, they can yield positive results with minimal effort.

2. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction: The Rolling Stones

With a six decade and counting run, The Rolling Stones have demonstrated their ability to stay current and create music that continues to appeal to a contemporary audience. Among their talented roster, lead singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards are the band’s primary songwriters.

Although they have shown their talent at taking the effort to write numerous iconic songs over their 60 years together, one of their earliest hits was basically an accident. In just around two minutes, Keith Richards had come up with the song’s title and one of the most recognizable riffs in rock music without having even realized that he had done it. In the middle of the night, Richards had gotten up from bed, fooled around on his guitar a bit and muttered some words in his drowsy state before returning to sleep a few minutes later. He had forgotten that his tape recorder was next to him in bed and he had left it on the rest of the night.

When he woke up the next morning, Richards realized that he had forgotten to switch the tape recorder off and decided to listen to it for fun. It was then he heard the riff he had played, the words he had said and the snoring that came after. He then handed it over to Mick Jagger who spent the day finishing the song’s lyrics by the pool at a hotel. Four days later, the song was fully completed in the studio.

Satisfaction was iconic at the time for being musically excellent but controversial at the time for its suggestive lyrics. It has since evolved into a defining song of the 60s and one of the Rolling Stone’s signature songs. Music as we know it today would be very different if Keith Richards had forgotten to press record on that one random night.

1. Yesterday: The Beatles

While many of the hits on this list did not require all that much work, it did necessitate some kind of conscious effort to at least get started. Even Satisfaction was done during a short interlude in between sleep. Yesterday however, came completely in a dream.

While asleep at his then girlfriend, Jane Asher’s house, Paul McCartney completely dreamt up the sound that would soon become one of his greatest compositions. As soon as he awoke, he rushed to a piano in order to transcribe the sounds he heard in his dream before he could forget them. McCartney recorded the melody with lyrics about scrambled eggs as a placeholder for more suitable words later on.

Although he had written and recorded the song very quickly, he did not release it right away. Fearing that he had actually dreamt of an existing song, McCartney showed his recording to people in the music industry in order to make sure that he had not unintentionally plagiarized another person’s song. When he was given all the clear McCartney and John Lennon finished the lyrics and The Beatles promptly completed the song which was released on their Help album despite having existed for quite some time before that. It soon shot up to number 1.

Yesterday would become one of The Beatles most well known songs and is one of the most recorded songs in history. It also demonstrated Paul McCartney’s ability to literally dream up hits. A few years later, McCartney would have another dream that eventually led to Let it Be. It goes to show that inspiration can come at any time, especially when we’re not actively looking for it.

That does it for this list! If you made it this far, let me thank you for taking the time to read this. I really do appreciate all the views and feedback I receive! I personally found it very inspiring how quickly these hits were written because it teaches us something very important: If we are good at something and passionate about it, we will be successful without having to try too hard.

Anyway, do let me know if there are other similar stories and perhaps I shall follow up on this list in a future article. Until then, take care!