10 Hit Songs the Artists Themselves Hated Recording

Robert Plant once gave money to a radio station on the condition that they never play "Stairway to Heaven" again. He wrote it. He sang it. He has spent fifty years trying to get away from it. He is not alone. Some of the most beloved songs of the sixties and seventies were made by people who could not stand them — recorded under protest, released against the artist's vote, or written cynically for reasons that had nothing to do with music. In this countdown we go through ten of them, ordered by what the song actually cost the person who made it. Keith Richards voted against releasing "Satisfaction." Pete Townshend wrote "Pinball Wizard" purely to bribe a critic into liking Tommy. Eric Clapton quit The Yardbirds over a harpsichord. And Van Morrison recorded thirty-one nonsense songs about ringworm and sandwiches to escape the contract that took his "Brown Eyed Girl" royalties. Which one surprised you? Tell us in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 The song he paid to have banned 0:55 1. The Rolling Stones — "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" 2:40 2. The Who — "Pinball Wizard" 4:20 3. The Beatles — "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" 6:15 4. Frank Sinatra — "Strangers in the Night" 8:00 5. David Bowie — "The Laughing Gnome" 9:50 6. Van Morrison — "Brown Eyed Girl" 11:30 7. KISS — "Beth" 13:10 8. The Yardbirds — "For Your Love" 14:50 9. Rod Stewart — "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" 16:10 10. Led Zeppelin — "Stairway to Heaven" 17:40 Final thoughts ALSO WORTH KNOWING Sinatra knocked the Beatles off number one with a song he openly called the worst he had ever heard The famous piano intro to "Ob-La-Di" came out of John Lennon's frustration with the song "Beth" is the highest-charting KISS single ever, and almost no one from KISS plays on it A magazine campaign once pushed "The Laughing Gnome" to the top of a David Bowie fan setlist vote, twenty-three years after he recorded it WATCH NEXT 10 Fake Bands From the '60s That Topped the Charts — [LINK] If you enjoy music history like this, subscribe. New videos every week. #ClassicRock #MusicHistory #70sMusic #LedZeppelin #TheBeatles #RollingStones #60sMusic #RockHistory #MusicTrivia #VinylRecords #BabyBoomers #OldiesMusic #ClassicHits