Songs Named After Women

Ten women, ten songs, and very few of them were consulted.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. An acoustic guitar beside a French dictionary and a half-empty wine glass at a small art-school party, paint splatters on the floor.

    10. Michelle

    The Beatles · 1965

    No actual Michelle. It began as McCartney's fake-French party bit; a French teacher, Jan Vaughan, supplied the name and the rhyme. It won the Grammy for Song of the Year anyway. The most successful song ever written to impress art students.

  2. The back seat of a taxi at night with a notebook and pen left on it, city lights streaking past and a speeding ticket folded on the floor.

    09. Valerie

    The Zutons · 2006

    Dave McCabe wrote it in about 20 minutes in a cab, about an American friend, makeup artist Valerie Star, and her driving-related legal trouble. Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse covered it a year later and took it to No. 2. The Zutons got the credit. And the royalties.

  3. A single wilted rose on a velvet-lined acoustic guitar case in a dim recording studio, smoke curling in the light.

    08. Angie

    The Rolling Stones · 1973

    Rumored to be about Angela Bowie or Angie Dickinson. Keith Richards once tied it to his newborn daughter Angela, then wrote in his memoir it was about nobody, just a name. Jagger's lines reportedly drew on Marianne Faithfull. A No. 1 with four suspects.

  4. A 1950s drum kit with a pair of crossed sticks on the snare and horn-rimmed glasses resting on the floor tom.

    07. Peggy Sue

    Buddy Holly · 1957

    It started as Cindy Lou, after Holly's niece, then became Peggy Sue Gerron, girlfriend of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison, who paradiddles through the entire song like he has something to prove. He did. Number three in the US. Sorry, Cindy Lou.

  5. A black shawl and a tambourine with ribbons on a stone circle in the Welsh hills under a full moon, birds overhead.

    06. Rhiannon

    Fleetwood Mac · 1975

    Stevie Nicks found the name in a novel called Triad, and only later learned Rhiannon was a goddess from Welsh myth. She introduced it on stage as a song about an old Welsh witch anyway. Mick Fleetwood compared the live shows to an exorcism. Fair.

  6. A cramped garage with a cheap amp, a tambourine and a drum kit, one cable snaking toward an open door at dusk.

    05. Gloria

    Them · 1964

    Van Morrison wrote it as a teenager and it went out as a B-side, which is why every garage band since has learned it before their own names. The Shadows of Knight took it to No. 10 in 1966 because radio was nervous about the original. Spelling counts as a chorus.

  7. A red lamp glowing in the window of a shabby Paris hotel at night, a faded theater poster peeling on the lobby wall below.

    04. Roxanne

    The Police · 1978

    Sting saw sex workers outside the band's seedy Paris hotel and took the name from an old Cyrano de Bergerac poster in the foyer. The laugh at the start is him sitting on a piano by accident. It flopped first, then charted on reissue. Persistence.

  8. A lit-up sidewalk of glowing square tiles at night, a single white sequined glove and a black fedora lying on one tile.

    03. Billie Jean

    Michael Jackson · 1982

    Not a real person, per Jackson: a composite of the women who claimed his brothers fathered their kids. Quincy Jones wanted to call it Not My Lover so nobody thought of the tennis player. Seven weeks at No. 1 and a moonwalk later, nobody did.

  9. A battered Stratocaster resting on an open antique Persian book of poetry beside a grand piano, candlelight.

    02. Layla

    Derek and the Dominos · 1970

    Clapton's unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, who was married to his friend George Harrison, routed through a 12th-century Persian poem. Jim Gordon is credited with the piano coda; Bobby Whitlock says he lifted it from Rita Coolidge. Nobody here behaved well.

  10. A vintage bank teller window with a single strand of red hair caught on the brass counter and an acoustic guitar leaning against it.

    01. Jolene

    Dolly Parton · 1973

    A red-haired bank clerk flirted with Parton's new husband; the name came from a little girl who asked for an autograph. Parton begs instead of threatening, which is the twist. It hit No. 1 country in 1974. Carl Dean, for the record, stayed.

Honorable mentions

  • A white paddle-wheel riverboat churning down a wide river at sunset, its big wheel throwing spray.

    Proud Mary

    Creedence Clearwater Revival · 1969

    A woman's name on a riverboat. John Fogerty's version hit No. 2; Ike and Tina Turner's took it nice and rough to No. 4 and won a Grammy. Technically about a boat, which is still more than Michelle got.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A white grand piano in an empty lounge with a brandy snifter on the lid and a dog's leash draped over the bench.

    Mandy

    Barry Manilow · 1974

    Originally Brandy by Scott English, renamed so nobody confused it with Looking Glass. English later said the famous story that it was about his dog was a lie he told to get a reporter off the phone. It went to No. 1. Brandy never got a vote.

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