I Won't Sing It...Singers Who Turned Down Hit Songs

It's strange because Hard Luck Woman seems to be the inspiration/source of the intro to "Unsatisfied" by the Replacements, on the Let it Be LP, and Sixteen Blue, from that LP was reputedly also offered to Rod Stewart and turned down.

 

To Love Somebody was written for Otis Redding.

 

And then ironically cut it, along with a dozen other Gates tunes, for a solo project a decade or so later...

 

I can hear them doing that and really well.

 

Toni Basil turned down "Walk Like An Egyptian."

 

You don't have to imagine it!

 

Recently I was taking a walk, and I thought of Powderfinger. One of those songs I could maybe carry off on my old unused acoustic Guild.
Was frustrated I couldn't think of the beginning to the third verse, and had to look it up.

"Daddy's rifle in my hand felt reasurrin.' He told me, "Red means run, son, numbers add up to nuthin'.
"So when the first shot hit the dock, ... (this is where I could remember the lyrics, the shot hittin' the dock).
What a vignette !

 

Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" was written right after a Ramones concert, and he wanted to give it to them. Johnny Ramone turned it down, and so Bruce recorded it for The River

 

"Not really about a hit in particular but Prince fired Janet's writers/producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis from his team and in just a couple years they would go on to sell millions of record with Janet, who by the late 80's and early 90's was scoring more hits and selling more records than Prince."


Who cares about artistic vision and integrity when you can Jam out hit Ear Candy?
Prince missed the boat on that one !

 

Absolutely. With Kirshner still in the picture, there would have been no "Daydream Believer." Chip Douglas brought that to the the fold. Probably no Nillson songs either.
Kirshner's role is so overblown to me. The first album was mostly Boyce/Hart. For every I"m a Believer and Sometime in the Morning on the second album, there was a Day We Fall in the Love or Laugh. Most of the songs slated for his third monkees album were junk.

 

Very nice. Although I would have loved to hear their vocals in 1984 to the backing track as we know it on the studio version.

Again, very tasty though.

 

And what a fantastic third album they made after insisting on more creative control with Kirshner out of the way (though not completely out of the picture but his days were numbered) and Chip Douglas in the producer's role.

 

Outstanding Oatsdad!!

 

Stevie Nicks turned down These Dreams. Heart had a US #1 single with it.

 

Sinatra turned down "Nature Boy."

 

Da, damn!

 

Stevie Nicks - "Purple Rain."

 

Toto recorded a demo of a barely fleshed out version of "Human Nature," then canned it - Michael heard it by mistake, and decided it was worth building from.

 

Right. It was way out of line with those cutting edge songs they were doing at the time, like Do You Want To Know A Secret? and Love Me Do.