After watching the excellent video that Twang posted on Mike Campbell, I ended up down the proverbial rabbit hole, listening to the Travelling Wilburys and then on to Roy Orbison.
From his Mystery Girl album from 1989, the exquisite “She’s A Mystery To Me” which as I’m sure you all know was written by Bono & The Edge. Now a large part of its excellence is the voice of Roy Orbison, but I also think it’s one of the best songs that Bono / The Edge have ever written.
So what other songs are out there that were written by well known artists for another artist that up there with their own great work? I’m not talking cover versions here, but songs that were specifically written for someone else and not (at least originally) recorded by the writer.
The first two that came to mind were Prince / Manic Monday for The Bangles and Mark Knopfler / Private Dancer for Tina Turner.
I’m sure there’s loads more…….
And the obligatory YouTube…..
My tall chum has form here. This one paid for his house.
Written in a flat above Roy’s the Butchers. There’s a Radio 4 documentary about it…
I see he’s on tour soon. There was a poster in Bath this week (we went to see Hothouse Flowers at Komedia).
I saw him at the newish venue in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago. My first time since before lockdown. He’s still quite good. Cambridge Folk Club did the promotion so there were only 85 in the audience.
I’m pretty sure Bowie wrote All The Young Dudes for Mott the Hoople to dissuade them from breaking up
They had the choice of Dudes or Suffragette City
I think Stevie Wonder writing ‘Superstition’ for Jeff Beck must be up there. He decided to record it himself, as well, of course – but that wasn’t the plan originally.
Similar with Hungry Heart, written for The Ramones but Bruce ultimately kept it.
There’s this of course.
Lots of Macca items come to mind – ‘Come And Get It’ by Badluck comes to mind. And Duffy Power was told at the time that John & Paul had written ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ for him:
Step Inside Love is an absolute Macca cracker.
It certainly is.
Macca did this lovely song too:
Nick Lowe has excellent previous.
Solomon Burke
Johnny Cash
Heard to brilliant effect in the denouement of Mobland.
Did he write it for JC? Was not aware of that, because his version is miles better than Cash’s.
He certainly did.
I recall an interview with Nick where he said he had told JC (moving in the family circle as Carlene Carter’s then husband) he had written a song for him called The Beast In Me. He had little more than a title and a few chords.
Some time later JC asked him where the song was. Nick had to quickly finish it off.
Yes, when he was married to Rosanne. I remember a podcast interview when he said it took so long to write that it became a standing joke, whenever Johnny saw him he would open with, ‘How’s The Beast in Me coming along?’
Don’t think he was ever married to Roseanne – fairly sure that it was Carlene Carter?
Correct, it was RC.
The full story is several times he saw Johnny who asked to hear the song and Nick bottled out and went back and further refined it until he thought it was ready for the great man.
RC or CC, Twang? Now I’m confused…
It was Carlene, you are right
His first marriage was to singer Carlene Carter it lasted from 1979 to 1990
CC. Sorry, long day.
Quite right.
The video for “Cruel to be Kind” featured footage from Nick Lowe’s wedding ceremony
Weakened somewhat by the fact that the Sopranos used BIM as an episode closer about 20 years earlier
There’s a lot of beasts in gangsters, obvs. 😏
I was thinking that.
This may surprise some, but despite very rarely writing songs (with words) John McLaughlin has a couple of worthy items written for others.
‘Do You Believe in Love?’ – co-written with Ian Samwell (yes, the ‘Move It’ man) for Linda Lewis in 1967:
And, in the peak Mahavishnu era, he wrote ‘Someone’ for James Taylor – which sounds not a million miles away from a James Taylor song – until the chord at 1:37. And yes, John plays guitar on it.
Assume that’s the one-hour-thirty-seven-minute mark
Very good!
Elvis Costello comes immediately to mind, with the Wendy James album, Shipbuilding for Robert Wyatt and many many more, with his All This Useless Beauty album being a collection of his songs originally written for others, including Roger McGuinn and June Tabor.
Would Girls Talk make the list? A demo picked up by and recorded by Dave Edmunds (cotractually, but actually recorded by Rockpile)
He also wrote the lyrics (at least) for his missus – about half the tracks on The Girl In The Other Room.
I seem to recall that he wrote ‘Almost Blue’ for Frank Sinatra but Ole Blue Eyes wasn’t keen so it was turned country.
Randy Newman wrote ‘Lonely At TheTop’ for Sinatra too. He didn’t want it either.
And of course The Comedians for the Roy Orbison album mentioned in the OP
Brooce gave Patti Smith Because The Night
She completed the lyrics which were half written
Ditto Warren Zevon’s Jeannie Needs a shooter
My understanding is that Patti Smith stole Because The Night.
They were recording at the same studios at the same time. A tape of BTN came into Patti Smith’s possession and they recorded the song without permission.
She added some lyrics and claimed the co-write.
BS was big enough to accept the situation rather than resort to law.
Main culprit was apparently Jimmy Iovine who wanted a hit song for Patti Smith, heard Springsteen’s outline song, and convinced him to give it up.
The Pointer Sisters also had a hit with Fire (written for Robert Gordon), Southside Johnny did The Fever, I heard Bruce do both on the famous Winterland bootleg from 1978 a couple of decades before his studio versions were officially released.
Also Manfred Mann’s Earth band with Blinded by tjhe Light, he had already recorded it, but was still unknown. Remarkably Bowie also covered 2 of his songs before he was a household name (Growin’ Up and It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City)
Kit Hain out of Marshall Hain of Dancing In the City fame has written songs for loads of people, including Kiki Dee, Chaka Kahn, Fleetwood Mac, Judy Collins and Roger Daltrey. She didn’t write Giving It All Away, for Daltrey of course. That was Leo Sayer, bless him.
When you come around / You bring the Summer
Andy Partridge wrote this for The Monkees’ most recent platter, a triumph, transcendent 60s pastiche.
…and that’s not the only example on a fabulous album.
Marty Wilde co wrote this brilliant song with Ronnie Scott for Status Quo.
The two biggies in this category:
Nothing Compares 2 U
Islands In The Stream
Prince wrote NC2U not for Sinead, but for The Family.
Equally, Manic Monday was originally written for Apollonia 6, but then his head was turned by La Hoffs (can’t imagine why…)
For Kiss, he performed something of a reverse ferret, initially presenting the basic demo to another protege project, Mazerati – then being so greatly impressed by their souped-up arrangement of the song that he reclaimed it and used it as the blueprint for his final version. The cheeky scamp.
Private Dancer – originally intended for Love Over Gold, but given to Tina Turner.
Also from the TT album, What’s Love Got to Do with It was originally intended for Bucks Fizz
The Fizzers recorded it first.
As Tears Go By. Andrew Oldham got Marianne Faithfull to record as a b-side initially then A-side when it was a hit.
Later on quite a few people wrote songs for the very brilliant Marianne Faithful on her Kissin Time album. Beck, Jarvis Cocker, Blur, Billy Corgan.
I only recently came across this belter from the great Shirley Bassey written by the Manics. What voice that girl still has
Written by Pharrell Williams for Ceelo Green who turned it down.
Stevie Wonder originally wrote “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” for Syreeta’s 1974 album, but the instrumental version on Jeff Beck’s “Blow By Blow” in 1975 is The Definitive One. Jeff dedicated it to Roy Buchanan.
Also on that same album – next track in fact – is Stevie’s instrumental “Thelonius”.
Jeff Beck
Syreeta
And here’sThelonius.
Stevie also gave Superstition to Jeff Beck then the record company said it’s too good , you’ve gotta put it out.
There’s always JD Souther. He had a lot of form in this kind of caper.
The debut album by Nico, “Chelsea Girls” included songs by Lou Reed/John Cale, but also her recent lover Jackson Browne (as in this song, “The Fairest of the Seasons”). She never took this baroque folk-rock path again—-it sounds like Marianne Faithfull—but I rather like it.
Tom Waits wrote this for Marianne Faithfull
and Neil Hannon wrote this for Ute Lemper
Back to the OP, Mike and Tom Petty wrote “Stop dragging my heart around” for Stevie Nicks. It turned into a duet when Tom was teaching her the melody and the blend of voices made her insist he sang on it.
Didn’t he do Ways to Be Wicked for Lone Justice as well?
Speaking of Lone Justice, is there any better behind-the-song story than these two, written for my doppelganger Feargal Sharkey?
A Good Heart
You Little Thief
Benmont Tench denies the latter is about Maria McKee, but then he would, wouldn’t he?
And to complete the circle, the new Lone Justice album that came out last year had a cover of Teenage Kicks…..