Music is the culmination of many things. Melody, rhythm, spirit. But also song lyrics and storytelling. Some songs are even written by giants that are meant to pay tribute to others in the art form. Written by legends for legends. Below are six such songs.
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Have you ever wondered what a song by U2 would sound like that pays tribute to blues icons? Or what about a song from Paul McCartney honoring his fallen John Lennon? These are the songs for you.
[RELATED: Ranking All the Songs on ‘Led Zeppelin IV’]
These are six classic rock songs that pay tribute to legends.
1. “Angel Of Harlem,” U2
Released on the 1988 LP, Rattle and Hum, “Angel of Harlem” highlights jazz icons like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. One could make the argument that contemporary rock groups should all write songs in homage to their blues and jazz forebearers. Either way, U2 did it.
Birdland on fifty-three
The street sounds like a symphony
We got John Coltrane and a love supreme
Miles, and she’s got to be an angel
Lady Day got diamond eyes
She sees the truth behind the lies
Angel
2. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” Pink Floyd
This epic, nine-part track, was released on Pink Floyd’s 1975 album, Wish You Were Here. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is an homage to the band’s iconic oddball founder, Syd Barrett, who was known for stream-of-consciousness lyrics, psychedelic tones, and, later, bouts with mental illness.
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
3. “American Pie,” Don McLean
Perhaps the most famous classic rock song that pays tribute to fallen musical legends, “American Pie,” which was released on Don McLean‘s 1971 album of the same name, honors those who died in the famous plane crash— Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens—also known as “the day the music died.”
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
4. “Here Today,” Paul McCartney
Released on McCartney’s 1982 album, Tug of War, “Here Today” was written to honor McCartney’s former friend and partner with the Beatles, John Lennon, who had been murdered less than two years prior. McCartney has said he was crying when he wrote the song, just months after Lennon was killed. It was written like a conversation between the two. The song starts off with a poignant question.
And if I said
I really knew you well, what would your answer be
If you were here today?
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Here today
Well, knowing you
You’d probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart
If you were here today
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Here today
5. “Sleeps With Angels,” Neil Young & Crazy Horse
“Sleeps With Angels” is the title track from Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s 1994 LP. Young wrote the song after Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died from suicide on April 5, 1994. (The album was released on August 16, 1994.) Young was inspired to write the song after Cobain quoted him in his suicide note, writing, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” A line from Young’s 1979 song, “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black).”
She wasn’t perfect
She had some trips of her own
He wasn’t worried
At least he wasn’t alone (Too late)
He sleeps with angels (Too soon)
He’s always on someone’s mind
He sleeps with angels (Too late)
He sleeps with angels (Too soon)
6. “Chelsea Hotel #2,” Leonard Cohen
Released in 1974 from Leonard Cohen’s album, New Skin of the Old Ceremony, “Chelsea Hotel #2” references a sexual relationship in New York City’s famous Chelsea Hotel. When introducing the song, Cohen often told the backstory, making it clear that iconic singer Janis Joplin was the subject of the tryst. Later, however, Cohen expressed regret for spilling the secrets, telling the BBC in 1994, that sharing the story was “an indiscretion for which I’m very sorry, and if there is some way of apologizing to the ghost, I want to apologize now, for having committed that indiscretion.”
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were talking so brave and so free
Giving me head on the unmade bed
While the limousines wait in the street
And those were the reasons and that was New York
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song
It still is for those of us left.
Photo by Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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