This thread aboy Layla got me thinking about what person inspired the most songs. I’m not really talking about historical/religious figures like Jesus Christ but won’t limit the discussion.
I just think that Layla is a terrific song. It was inspired by Patti Boyd, George Harrison’s wife at the time. Eric Clapton apparently had not so subtle unrequited love for the girl, and eventually stole her away from George. George apparently didn’t mind so much, and he and Eric remained friends even afterwards.
Astonishingly enough, Patti was arguably inspiration for 4 songs. Harrison wrote “Something” and “What is Life”, while Clapton wrote “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight”. I love all these songs. Damn, that woman must have been something to stir up that kind of passion. According to the Wiki article, Harrison denied that she was the inspiration after she left him, but who knows. I dunno, maybe Patti was a bit into self promotion.
Whoa, that article says that Boyd stated she the inspiration for “Bell Bottom Blues” also, so that makes 5 songs.
Can anyone else top Ms. Boyd’s muse power? Actually, inspiring two songs would be doing pretty good.
Pretty much all the songs on Bob Dylan’s album Blood on the Tracks were about his breakup with wife Sara. In addition, the songs “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” “If Not For You” and of course “Sara” were inspired by her as well.
I was just thinking that Marilyn Monroe must have inspired a few. Of course, there is Candle in the Wind by Elton John.
I cheated and looked her up on Wiki. Oddly enough, the punk band The Misfits named their band after Marilyn’s last completed movie The Misfits. They wrote “Who Killed Marilyn?” about Marilyn Monroe’s death. Wiki also claims that she is is the title character “Miss American Pie” in the Don McClean song “American Pie”. This seems strange to me. This site claims Miss American Pie is rock and roll music. Don McLean dated a Miss America candidate during the pageant, supposedly.
There’s a bunch of other references, but I don’t know the songs so I ain’t counting them.
Marianne Faithful was the inspiration for The Hollies Carry Ann. Her wiki claims that she was the inspiration or partial inspiration for Wild Horses, and she gave Mick Jagger the book that inspired Sympathy of the Devil.
Linda McCartney inspired a fair number of songs. First, there was the song Linda by Jack Lawrence and of course, I Will, Maybe I’m Amazed, The Lovely Linda…and a lot more because Paul, bless him, is a bit of a sap.
I should add that Def Leppard’s Photograph is supposedly about Marilyn Monroe. The video contains her, and Joe Elliot says it is, so I guess it is. I’m just not much of a fan, but that is a pretty famous song.
And John Lennon himself inspired McCartney’s Here Today (and I believe Two of Us is more about John than it is about Linda, regardless of what Paul says), Ringo’s Photograph, Harrison’s All Those Years Ago, (and of course, When We Were Fab), and Elton John’s Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny), Paul Simon’s The Late Great Johnny Ace, and Loudon Wainwright’s Not John, among many others. Yoko also had a number of songs about Lennon.
According to Wikipedia, Maroon 5’s album Songs About Jane really was about a girl named Jane:
Unfortunately there is no indication of exactly how many of the songs are inspired by her; there are 12 tracks and it’s possible that every one is, but maybe not.
Yeah, she um, …[del]got aroun[/del] left a long, sad trail of broken hearts.
[I also read somewhere that Bob Dylan said that he wrote *Tangled Up in Blue* after listening to her album *Blue*, but didn’t include it because it wasn’t about *her* specifically.]