You know how sometimes you put on a coat you haven’t worn for a while and discover a tenner in the inside pocket (great feeling), some artists get into such a fruitfully creative run in their career that they have classics lying about all over the place. You could say it’s the true mark of generational artists, shopping out era-defining hits to their peers because, well, ‘We’re just stacked over here, we haven't the space’.
It's a shame this act of generosity seems to have dried up a little of late. The last notable gift could well be Coldplay saving the career of post-Britpop also-rans Embrace by giving them the Top Ten hit Gravity, but no-one wants to read a list of ten classics that features a song by Embrace, that would be mad. Instead, here are ten given-away masterpieces that will last for the ages…
Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes (1972)
One of the most famous artist donations of all time. Hereford rock quartet Mott The Hoople were on the verge of splitting up due to lack of success in 1972. Luckily, in David Bowie they had a famous fan who was willing to lend a hand. Actually it wasn’t a hand, it was a really great song. Bowie originally offered the band the stomping The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars cut Suffragette City, which they rejected (which is weird). Not to be deterred he came up with this glam-rock anthem in two hours instead. He produced it for them and it became a Top Three hit. Mott The Hoople were saved. He offered them Drive-In Saturday as a follow-up and they rejected him again. They didn’t help themselves, did they?
Badfinger - Come & Get It (1969)
Being gifted a song does not necessarily mean that the receiving party can’t write their own, it’s just sometimes an artist needs that certain something to light a fire under their career. That’s certainly the case with Martin Scorsese faves Badfinger, who wrote a number of early 70s crackers including Baby Blue, Day After Day and Without You. But it was this Paul McCartney-penned tune that got them going, their first release as Badfinger. McCartney had a vested interest given the band were on The Beatles’ Apple label, giving them a hit and sparking a topsy-turvy and sometimes-tragic career.
The Bangles - Manic Monday (1985)
Of the many songs to be outsourced from Paisley Park, the most famous is Sinead O’Connor’s timeless take on Nothing Compares 2 U. But given it had already been recorded by Prince offshoot The Family, it probably counts as a cover. The jaunty, jubilant pop of Manic Monday doesn’t, though. Prince originally wrote it for his female singing trio Apollonia 6 before re-diverting it to LA pop-rock quartet The Bangles, who happily received it. Prince, who donated the song under the pseudonym of Christopher, kept the track off the Number One spot in the US charts because his own Kiss was planted there.
Stevie Nicks - Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (1981)
It’s perhaps being a bit liberal with the truth to describe Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around as a song given to Stevie Nicks – this was more a song stolen. Nicks is one of the all-time great songwriters but she was desperate for Tom Petty to write her a track that would give her debut solo album a taste of the Heartbreakers’ sound that she was so into at the time. Petty did – the song was called Insider and turned out so good he decided to keep it for himself. Here’s where producer Jimmy Iovine, working with Nicks and Petty at the same time, pulled off a sneaky move. Petty and his band had laid down a version of Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around and the producer got Nicks to do her own version, turning it into a duet. Petty was miffed at the time but came to grow fond of the clandestine collaboration, sometimes joining Nicks onstage to perform it.
![Stevie Nicks - Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (Official Video) [HD Remaster] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/H5i7j0VhEHw/maxresdefault.jpg)
Diana Ross - Chain Reaction (1985)
The Bee Gees were prolific – and prolifically successful – writers for other people. Standouts included Dionne Warwick’s Heartbreaker, Islands In The Stream for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and the Grease theme tune for Frankie Valli. And no backchat please – the Grease theme tune is cracking. But this pips them all, transplanting a swaggering 80s singalong onto a Motown groove for one of the latter’s biggest stars, Diana Ross. It became Ross’s second UK Number One upon release in November 1985.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Woodstock (1970)
Joni Mitchell’s lilting tribute to the iconic festival – which she missed because her manager advised her it would be better for her career to appear on a TV show – was included on her 1970 record Ladies Of The Canyon. But she was pipped to the post when Graham Nash, her boyfriend at the time, recorded an amped-up, grizzled take on it with his group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and they included it on their second record Déjà Vu, which came out a month before Ladies Of The Canyon. I mean, is there a better example of the sharing-is-caring approach to being in a relationship? Even better, there’s also a version out there from 1969 featuring guitar and bass from Jimi Hendrix.
Bedtime Story - Madonna (1994)
Madonna had long been a pop superstar by the time her sixth studio rolled around in the mid-90s, but after the iffy reaction to her 1992 triumvirate of sauciness - album Erotica, book Sex and film Body Of Evidence – she was determined to get her musical credentials back on track. Showcasing the out-of-the-box thinking that made her such an trailblazer in the first place, she turned to synth-pop experimentalist Björk (a genius, but hardly a go-to artist if you’re after a massive hit) for help. Reluctant at first, the Icelandic star soon crafted a song for Madonna in the trance-y, pulsing Let’s Get Unconscious with producer Nellee Hooper. Retitled Bedtime Story by Madonna, it became the sort-of title track to parent album Bedtime Stories and opened up Madonna’s sound to the sort of electronic-pop anthems she would take to new heights with her late 90s masterpiece Ray Of Light.
![Madonna - Bedtime Story (Official Video) [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/CSaFgAwnRSc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Tina Turner - Private Dancer (1984)
Everything about the title track to Tina Turner’s all-conquering, career-changing fifth solo album changes when you discover it was written by Dire Straits’ mainman Mark Knopfler. In Turner’s hands, the lyric is weary and soulful, lending the huge hook its emotional anchor. There is, on a shelf somewhere, a Dire Straits recording of it, but no-one ever needs to hear Mark Knopfler, the sort of bloke who has always looked like he was born in his late 40s, sing the words “I’m your private dancer/A dancer for money/And any old music will do”. Not unless it’s a scene in an Alan Partridge show. Knopfler obviously thought the same, binning off his band’s version and giving it to Turner two years later. But not before he repurposed the melody for Dire Straits’ Love Over Gold (which is pretty rubbish, FYI).
James Taylor - You’ve Got A Friend (1971)
That’s an understatement – US singer-songwriter Taylor had one of the most generous friends of all in Carole King. The two were working on their new albums together simultaneously, sharing ideas and musicians in the sessions, when King wrote a reply-song to Taylor’s downbeat ballad Fire And Rain and came up with one of the best songs of all time. You’ve Got A Friend is one of those rare tracks that feels like there couldn’t have been a time when it didn’t exist and both Taylor and King included versions on resulting albums – King’s Tapestry and Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon – that were released within months of each other. It was Taylor’s version that was released as a single and became a huge hit. Hope he said thanks.
Patti Smith Group - Because The Night (1978)
In another cunning little manoeuvre by Jimmy Iovine, the producer was working with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the same time he was in the studio with Patti Smith and when he watched The Boss struggling to lay down a satisfactory version of Because The Night, he had a lightbulb moment. Telling Springsteen how much he wanted Smith to have a hit, he suggested giving this driving, powerful anthem to her and Springsteen was down with it. The punk-poet legend tweaked the lyrics slightly and its success propelled her third studio Easter to triumph.
