Okay, flipping up the lists. I need to leave the artists alone because I’m quickly running out of artists I feel entirely qualified to talk about. Basically, I don’t want someone to say, “what about (insert song)?”…and I’ve never heard of it. That’s no fun.
So today, I’m going with songs i wish I’d written. Some of them are songs that hit me very personally. Some are just so good that I hope one day to write something as good as those. Various reasons here.
Also, this is easily the least scientific list I’ve done because the scope is so broad. The numbers don’t really reflect much except for those near the top. I’m just going through iTunes and seeing what grabs me immediately. I’m leaving a million people off, but I know you all will be quick to tell me what a moron I am. I am, after all, a moron.
25.Shooters – Lil Wayne. No, it shouldn’t be on this list, but it’s my favorite song right now. It’s the Southern liberation anthem of right now. Always okay with that.
24.Fly Away – Goodie Mob. This was the Southern liberation anthem of 1998. “If you don’t like what I say/fly away/If you don’t like where I stay/fly away.” This still holds. Carpetbaggers, take note.
23.I Can’t Write Left-Handed – Bill Withers. I wrote something about this, but I’m too lazy to look for it. Just google my name and Bill Withers.
22.Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison. It’s important to note this isn’t the best song from Van the Man. That would probably be “Tupelo Honey.” However, this is the best written. So concise, so powerful, so catchy, and so damn good. “Sometimes I’m overcome thinkin’ bout making love in the green grass by the stadium with you, my brown eyed girl.” I wanna say stuff like that. And something to note–I read somewhere that this was originally titled “Brown Skinned Girl.”
21.Gun – Gil Scott-Heron. “Brotherman nowadays livin in the ghetto/where the danger’s sho nuff real/when he’s out late at night/if he’s got his head on right/I lay you nine-to-five he’s walking with steel.” Gil’s an absolute genius. Scathing critique of society with an understanding that we gotta do foul thing sometimes just to make it.
20.I Wish – R. Kelly. We can talk about how R. writes simple stuff, but this one is dope as hell for a few ways. First, he actually sang rap lyrics and made that shit work really well. Second, this song really captures what it’s like to live with the expectations other have of you. This came out the summer Jon died, and it really hit me hard at that point. Ever felt like other people didn’t cut you the slack of being a human being? I have. Apparently, so has the Arruh.
19.Cut Loose – Field Mob. I’d love to be able to write a song about a woman leaving me for an old man because I was a little too rough with it, if you get me drift. Sorry, but that’s incredibly creative.
18.Little Red Corvette – Prince. So many directions to go on this one, but I’ll take this one that Eric Arnold once described as a freaky version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”
17.Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd. “Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?/Hot ashes for trees?/Hot air for a cool breeze?/Cold comfort for change?/Did you exchange/a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” Well, did you? Definitely put this in the Top 5 since I’m too lazy to rearrange the list.
16.Never Let You Down – Kanye West f/J. Ivy and Jay-Z. Every last one of them comes with the fire. Every last one. And it’s that inspiring kind of fire. I listened to this song every day second semester of my first year at Carolina as I tried to get through the Hawk to get to class. It’s that kinda fire.
15.Big Punisher – I’m Not a Playa. Pun was the best at rapping about trim ever. And forgive me, but I wish I could be that crude and direct and still get results. And I’m pretty direct as things stand now.
14.No Woman, No Cry – Bob Marley. So many directions to go with Marley, so I’ll go with the anthem. Unreal.
13.Yesterday – Beatles. Played out, cliche, whatever. It’s the most covered song ever for a reason. If nothing else, McCartney can write. As well as Harrison? I’m not sure. That’s right, Harrison.
12.Welcome to the Terrordome – Public Enemy. If I have to explain this to you, something just ain’t right. “What you need to do is get your mind ready/instead of getting physically sweaty.” Right on, Chuck. Right on.
11.One – U2. Ever gotten back with your ex-girlfriend–or boyfriend, if that’s how you roll–and had her/him straight tap dance on your shit because of whatever pain she still harbored for you breaking up with her before? Then this is the song for you. And eve if you can’t relate, you can dig this one. “Did I ask too much?/more than a lot?/You gave me nothing now that’s all I got/We’re one, but we’re not the same/we hurt each other and we do it again/you say love is a temple/love the higher law/love is a temple/love the higher law/you beg me to enter and then you make me crawl/and I can’t keep holding on to what you’ve got/when all you’ve got is hurt.” Hey you. You know damn well who you are. Man, I’m so fuckin jaded.
10.Sooperman Lova II – Redman. Okay, there is one thing about my professional writing that I definitely need to fix–I’m too damn serious. I mean, I don’t think humor and stuff should be the vehicle of my work, but I haven’t figured out how to really write irreverantly. I wanna be able to write stuff like this one. Absolute genius.
9.Let’s Do It Again – Staples Singers. Written by Curtis Mayfield. Song’s so dope that you don’t think about how weird it is for Mavis Staples to be singing that song with her pops. I wish I’d written this because Curtis managed to encapsulate exactly the sort of thing I want a woman to say to me. “The smell of the morning flowers as we pass away the hours/I wanna do it again.” If you’re talking about the morning, so do I. “Let’s do it in the morning/sweet breeze in the summertime/feeling your sweet face/all laid up next to mine/sweet love in the midnight/good love come morning light/don’t worry ’bout nothin’/just gettin good loving/do it again.” Well, if you insist…
8.Heaven Help Us All – Stevie Wonder. Timelessness goes a long way with me. “Heaven help the boy that won’t reach 21/and heaven help the man that gave that boy a gun.” Again, where are the morons that act like cats just started packing heat last week? This song’s from the mid-’60s.
7.Under Pressure – Queen and David Bowie. I’ve always said that Bowie might be the most underrated writer walking. That’s understandable. I mean, really, look at him. It’s hard to think of anything else. Anyway, this makes it just for the bridge Bowie throws at the end. “What’s was such an old fashioned word and love dares you to care for the people on the the edge of the the night and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves. This is our last dance. This is our last dance. This is ourselves under pressure.” I’m not too keen on that “love your brother” shit, but that’s amazing.
6.A Change is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke. I think the piece I wrote that’s linked says it all. But when people are up to redo a song for forty plus years after its original release, you’ve done something serious as a writer.
5.Victory – Puff Daddy and the Family. Yeah, like this has anything to do with Puffy. This is about the two best Biggie verses ever. Check the link.
4.I Ain’t Mad Atcha – 2Pac. I firmly believe Pac is seriously overrated, but I also think Pac’s dope as all get out. Strange dichotomy, but I’m going with this cut. Why? Because if you’ve ever had to manage an old friendship as you and your friends are changing at an exponential rate, you have to feel this one. The realizations he has in this song are why I’m still close with my best friend from 3rd grade, my boys from freshman year of college, etc.
3.All I Got Is You – Ghostface Killah. Simply put–the greatest verse in the history of rap music. Don’t agree if you don’t want to, but this is absolutely amazing. Click the link for the lyrics. Taking out a few lines would be an injustice.
2.My Way – Frank Sinatra. Written by Paul Anka. This is the theme song for anyone dripping with self-indulgence and too stupid to believe there’s nothing out there he or she incapable of pulling off. Yanno, people like me. “For what is a man? What has he got?/If not himself, then he has not/To say the things he truly feels/and not the words of one who kneels/The record shows I took the blows/and did it my way.” Yep, sounds about right.
1.American Pie – Don McLean. Yes, if I could have written any song, it would have been a folk rock song. Consider this–this song is, what, eight or nine minutes long with nothing but lyrics and refrains? Every bar is banging, the imagery is amazing, and he manages to capture one of the most sentimentally significant moments in American pop music–the day Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper’s plane crashed in Iowa. And I don’t just wish i’d written the lyrics. I wish I’d come up with the groove, the transitions, everything. “And the three men I admire most/the father, son, and the holy ghost/they caught the last train for the coast/the day the music died.” If I could write that well, I’d be making a lot more money.
So what do you wish you wrote?
22 thoughts on “25 Songs I Wish I'd Written”
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I’m loving Shooter right now too, glad I’m not the only one…
I wished I’d written the lyrics to AS by Stevie…I think bringing so many outrageous things together and making a valid point is ingenious.
Never Let You Down gets me up in the mornings. My Way is what gets me through the day. Only one missing is Only The Strong Survive (Jerry Butler). Nice list.
Songs I wish I’d written? Too many. Top 3 are probably Strange Fruit, I Used to Love H.E.R., and I don’t know if this counts, but I wish I’d arranged the Coltrane/Ellington version of In A Sentimental Mood. Classics all.
Never Let You Down gets me up in the mornings. My Way is what gets me through the day. Only one missing is Only The Strong Survive (Jerry Butler). Nice list.
Songs I wish I’d written? Too many. Top 3 are probably Strange Fruit, I Used to Love H.E.R., and I don’t know if this counts, but I wish I’d arranged the Coltrane/Ellington version of In A Sentimental Mood. Classics all.
Off the top of my head, Video by India Aire, Best of Me-remix with Jay-Z and Mya, 24 play by Janet, Never Loved A Man by Aretha, I’ll Take Yo Man by Mia X (lyrics) and Don’t Look Any Further by Eddie Kindricks and Siedah Garrett (music), partially because it is EVERYWHERE. But mostly because even though it’s everywhere I don’t mind cause it’s the joint.
You should also do songs that I wish were written about me: Disco Lady by Johnnie Taylor, You and I by Stevie Wonder, Stop to Love, Luther Vandross, A Song for You by Donnie Hathaway, Break Up to Make Up- Jay-Z and R. Kelly (if you are interested).
You really tugged on my heartstrings w/a couple of the joints on the list. Including Brown Eyed Girl proves that no matter how jaded you are, deep down, you’re a true romantic. I Wish is the only song that I like from the “R”. Redman probably has the best sense of humor and the ability to use it, in hip hop. Luda carries on in his tradition somewhat, but no one does it like Brick City’s finest (Jersey represent!) For fun, check the Sid Vicious version of My Way.
Anyway, I wish I had written: Spanish Harlem(Aretha Franklin);
I Only Have Eyes For You(the doo wop record-don’t know who recorded it);Fire & Rain (James Taylor);Down on the Corner (Creedence Clearwater Revival);Once in A Lifetime(Talking Heads);True Colors(Cyndi Lauper);I’ll Be Dat(Redman);Q-Tip’s lyrics from the following: Push It Along;Footprints;Steve Biko;Buggin’ Out;Get a Hold;Check the Rhime;Jazz(We’ve Got);Lyrics to Go;Midnight…I could go on & on.
Fire and Rain? Who knew you had done time in a nuthouse?
“Simply put–the greatest verse in the history of rap music.”
It’s up there. Common’s on “Respiration” comes to mind too.
John Lennon’s “Imagine” would be a good one. As would “Closer” (the anti-“One”) by Nine Inch Nails and “Da Art of Storytellin,” both of ’em, by OutKast.
But “Wish You Were Here” is an inspired choice.
I’m more a fan of “Instant Karma” than “Imagine.” The other two are great, though.
Hey BJones,
Enjoying your blog all the way up here in Beantown.
Songs I wish I wrote or like to believe the writer was writing about me…
“Me and those dreaming eyes of mine” D’Angelo
“one mo’ gin” D’Angelo
“Devil’s Pie” D’angelo…I guess you see a theme, lol
“Thieves in the Night” BlackStar
Oh, and YES! I ain’t mad at cha is 2pac’s best…hands down.
and “Imagine” by John Lennon.
ok, I’ll stop now.
Hey, thanks for putting #9 and #19 on there, you know I dig those hard myself. Stuff I wish I wrote…
Al Green ‘how can you mend a broken heart’,
kate bush/maxwell ‘a woman’s work’,
isley bros ‘at your best’, and
kanye west ‘crack music’
I’ll add to your Harrison tangent on the Beatles above:
Something (Harrison’s best Beatles song)
“Something in the way she moves, Attracts me like no other lover” … “You’re asking me will my love grow, I don’t know, I don’t know”
It’s like when your girl asks you, “Why do you love me?”
“I don’t know, it’s just ‘something’ about you, I just do!”
“Evidence” – Faith No More (despite some truly disturbing lyrics)
A few different tracks from The Police
“Hey Joe” – Jimi Hendrix
“Only in Dreams” – Weezer
“Asshole” – Denis Leary
Bakardi Slang by Kardinal Offishall
Get By by Talib Kweli
You Bring Me Joy, Fairy Tales and Lonely Girl by Anita Baker
Uninvited by Alanis Morrisette
Hasta Ayer by Marc Anthony
No Morira by DLG
A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke
32 Flavors by Ani DeFranco
Bring me Some Water by Melissa Etheridge
Brown Skin by India Arie
Jezebel by Sade
A Song for You by Donnie Hathaway
Sunshine After the Rain by Monday Michiru
Never Let you Down is my fave track on that whole album…the first time I heard it, I had to play it about 6 times in a row, just LISTENING to J. Ivy’s verse- “my rhythmatic regimen navigates melodic notes for your soul and your mental- THAT’S why I’m instrumental” ….??? are you KIDDING me? Fi-yah!!!!!
Hey Jaedalaurez, isn’t Ani DiFranco cool? I saw her in concert and was floored! She has very, very interesting lyrics.
OMG, Bo! You so hit the nail on the head with “One” by U2. First of all, Bono is one of the coolest people to ever walk the earth, but that song is all about me and my ex… and like you said, I am so fuckin’ jaded!
p.s. I love your Van Morrison, Queen/Bowie, and Pink Floyd choices, too!
OMG, Bo! You so hit the nail on the head with “One” by U2. First of all, Bono is one of the coolest people to ever walk the earth, but that song is all about me and my ex… and like you said, I am so fuckin’ jaded!
p.s. I love your Van Morrison, Queen/Bowie, and Pink Floyd choices, too!
“Ghost”–Indigo Girls
Captures the feeling of lost love like few other songs. “Dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush/When I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush/When you kiss me like a lover and you sting me like a viper/I go follow to the river play your memory like the piper” Damn.
1. Lenny Williams – Lenny sings, cries, screams, wails, and talks in a song that explores every aspect of L-O-V-E.
2. Smokey Robinson “Cruisin”
3. James Moody’s “Moody’s Mood for Love
4. Wu Tang – A Better Tomorrow
5. Bob Marley – Trenchtown Rock
I am definetly feeling you on your top 5 though I would have pushed victory back to NO.7 and put Under Pressure and No Woman No Cry ahead at 5 and 6.
Some of the more popular songs I wish I had written include the aforementioned Bowie/Mercury anthem (btw: let’s have a moment of silence, I heard that Bowie had a stroke the other day and I really can not BEAR the thought of a world without him).
Also — more by Queen (because I think Freddie Mercury was a black wooman born in the body of a Middle Eastern homosexual): “Another One Bites the Dust” my favorite break-up song, and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (its romantic antithesis). “Ziggy Stardust,” “Rock’n’Roll Suicide” and “Stone Love” by Bowie. “Say a Little Prayer” by Aretha, Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” (purely for its instrumental majesty), Prince’s “1999” (seriously, what a cash cow), Otis Redding’s “Sittin on the Dock of the Bay,” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.”
I’ll stop there but I encourage the list of songs that you wish were written about you. It would certainly be a revelatory exercise but maybe all your readers would write back with what songs they think were written for you.
Whether you like Nas or not, I think you have to have atleast one Nas song on there, preferably something from Illmatic or I am. I would have put Nas, “Black Girl Lost” on that list.
Realistically, if you were a lyrical critic, that B.I.G. verse is only good because it’s a tough-guy verse…I would have rather written Sky’s The Limit or Machine Gun Funk as they showed his lyrical capabilities the best.
Additionally, you know that Cal-Berkely has a class dedicated to Tupac’s writing right? Whether you like him, his music, or is message it doesn’t matter…no one wrote more truth and put more of himself out there than Tupac. Period. He may not be the best rapper ever, but as far as writing skills, you’d be a bad song critic not to mention most if not all of his songs for their depth and breadth of subject material as well as painting a picture of the struggle, the rise, and everything in between.
Credit needs to be given where credit is due.
What other rapper would have a class about him at a respected university such Berkely besides Tupac?
That Biggie verse is all crime, drugs and gun play, how can you call that his best verse? Especially compared to Sky’s The Limit or the songs off of Ready to Die…can you explain yourself? It would just help me. I can see the Ghostface verse being ill, but I don’t understand the Biggie verse being in that list or even being remotely considered as his best verse.
No explanation?
I’m clearly way past the expiration date on this post, but “Black” by Pearl Jam needs to go on these lists.
“I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life/I know you’ll be the sun/in somebody else’s sky/but why can’t it be mine?” Absolute genius.