Harry Chapin’s song Mail Order Annie was written after he thought his wife had stranded him at a train station after a gig. Not THAT weird, but how many songs about 19th-century mail-order brides do YOU know about?
That was a top-five hit?
November 1976 was a weird month for pop music. Other songs in the top five: “Muskrat Love” and “Disco Duck”.
Tim Rice heard a BBC program about Eva Peron and decided it would be a good idea for a musical. I’m sure Eva is furious that she is only remembered as “Evita.”
Mark Knopfler heard two truckdrivers taking about “little faggots” while watching MTV in a department store. A lot of the lyrics in “Money for Nothing” are taken directly from their conversation.
Or any other decade for that matter. 
Queen’s Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke is based on a painting and poem by Richard Dadd.
Is the story true about “Killing Me Softly” being based on a Don McLean concert?
Smokey Robinson wrote “Tears of a Clown” after hearing a calliope. Not even a real calliope – just a sound effects record.
Good Morning, Good Morning was based on that Kellogg’s Cornflakes commercial.
Gary Numan says “Cars” stemmed from an incident in which a group of thugs tried to pull him out of his car, intending to beat him up.
Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini was inspired by the antics of a young girl, like five years old, and not an adult woman that evenyone thinks of when they hear the song.
Just about anything by Primus.
2112 by Rush gives credit for inspiration to Ayn Rand-:eek:-in the liner notes. They were also pissed at their record company for trying to make them write safe little radio-friendly songs.
Every Step you take by Sting was inspired by his keeping a close eye on his ex wife to try and catch her out after divorce proceedings.
He finds it very amusing that people think its a love song.
Cracklin Rosie by Neil Diamond was about a brand of cheap wine that people used to drive off and get drunk on Saturday nights if they couldnt get a date.
The 1938 NewYork Mining Disaster by the BeeGees(might have the year wrong)
Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen about a returned Special Forces vet whos left on the scrapheap when hes finished his enlistment.
Toast which is about toasted bread but cant remember the artists.
See post #20.
I’m not a rock star, nor do I play one on TV, but in my teen years, I wrote a few songs. They were so good that, well, today, I’m an aerospace engineer working for the gummint…
BUT, when I was still enough of a dreamer to think I had talent, all of 17 if I recall, I was playing my guitar and singing for my youngest sister. She was naming all the songs she knew and I would sing them for her. Being the wise-ass she was at that age, she said “Sing 84 songs!” And not to be out-wise-assed by a 6-year-old, I started strumming and singing a silly little ditty. And as I listened, I realized I was on to something, so I went to my room, turned on my teeny-tiny reel-to-reel tape recorder (this was 1971-ish) and completed the song. Fewer than 50 people have ever heard it, but *Eighty-four Songs * is actually a snappy, cute little tune that should have made me millions.
Oh well…
Hell, 2112 is just Ayn’s novella Anthem without the happy ending.
Other Rush Rand-inspired songs are Anthem, Tom Sawyer, and maybe Red Barchetta.
“Anthem” is definitely Rand-inspired. It’s also the name of their publishing company.
I read an interview of Neil Peart and he said something like: “I wrote the lyrics to 2112 and someone pointed out that it was almost exactly like the Ayn Rand story, ‘Anthem.’ I didn’t do it deliberately, but when I reread it to check, I thought we’d better put a mention in the liner notes.” My quote is heavily paraphrased from what I remember from the interview.
“Red Barchetta” is Peart lyrically riffing on a story he read in a car magazine called something like, “A Nice Sunday Drive.” Only the car in the original story was an MG. The stories are similar.
“Freewill,” about choice, seems pretty Randy (well the bass bit preceeding the solo is anyway )
I think “Tom Sawyer” would have been better named “Huckleberry Finn” due to the character of the protagonist. I think another Doper mentioned this a while ago in another thread. Only “Tom Sawyer” is a little more euphonious than “Huckleberry Finn.” I wouldn’t consider that a song with Rand influence so much as a song about disillusion and wanting to do something - anything- about it. Geddy Lee describes it as, “an attitude of the young.”
“The Trees,” which Peart now considers “trite,” was inspired by a cartoon he saw with trees acting “just as dumb as people can be,” though I suppose that song can also be considered Rand-influenced.
There are a lot of other songs by Rush that can be considered Rand-influenced, but I think their earlier stuff shows it a lot more. Peart used to have a sign in his luggage that had “Who is John Galt?” when they toured in the mid-70’s fer cryin’ out loud! Their stuff has been leavened by compassion for human weakness, so I would consider it more in line with libertarianism, small “l,” and humanism than Objectivism.
Disclaimer: I’m a fanboy. I’ve read a metric shitload of interviews and articles on the band, and I’m inserting my own prejudices and opinions on their stuff. Buy Snakes and Arrows. Turn it up. Your neighbors will love it. Especially “The Main Monkey Business.” Alex Lifeson is woefully underrated as a guitarist. He goes from subltlety to hammering rawk seamlessly. Rolling Stone critics are syphyllitic hamsters.
I don’t know if this counts, but one time at a Sugar Ray concert they told the story of the release “Chasing you around” or whatever it was. It was their new release at the time. They explained that one of them wrote it about chasing his daughter (who was about 5-6) around the yard, well, the chorus was about that anyways. Apparently when he brought it to the rest of the group, they thought it was a great song - about the girl he was dating. They wrote it somewhere in between the two ideas and it turned out to be not half bad.
A little off topic, but I wanted to contribute something…
Brendon Small