Music
Outkast, Taylor Swift, Bowie: they’ve all written songs about their peers. Here’s a few of the best.
Songwriting can be both an act of love and catharsis. An opportunity for pop singers to get things off their chests about people who've annoyed them or to pay tribute to the people who've inspired them. Or even to apologise for being an idiot. But even better is when artists use song as a way to reach out to their fellow music stars. Tongues are set wagging and the music press goes into a frenzy. Here's a selection of notable songs about other artists.
Tori Amos – Professional Widow
Tori Amos has never explicitly confirmed this song is about Courtney Love and the Hole singer's influence, but rumours have abounded since its release that it is. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor even admitted that Love meddled in his relationship with Amos. The song itself, taken from Amos's massively successful album Boys For Pele, chucks in a few other key signifiers, like references to drug use. Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl is also allegedly about Love.
Lush – Ladykiller
This recently reformed UK band, who had one foot in the shoegaze scene and another in the earliest throes of Britpop in the early '90s, traded in acerbic wit and melody-cloaked indie-rock. This fizzing, scornful anthem was informed by the band's experience of men in well-known bands while on tour. The song was apparently inspired by one man in particular: Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis, who attempted to "impress" Lush singer Miki at the 1992 Lollapalooza festival.
Outkast – Ms Jackson
André 3000 wrote this massive hit for Erykah Badu's mother, Kolleen Wright, after the couple broke her heart by ending their relationship. Andre writes about their love for each other but, as he sings, "you can't predict the weather, Ms Jackson". It seems Badu's mum loved it. Speaking to rap podcast Rap Radar, Badu said: "How did my mama feel? Baby, she bought herself a Ms Jackson license plate. She had the mug, she had the ink pen, she had the headband, everything. That's who loved it."
Pavement – Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence
These perennial favourites among plaid-shirt wearing indie boys and girls were always mentioning other artists. But Stephen Malkmus – the "Grace Kelly of indie rock," said Courtney Love – did it best on this potted review of REM's Reckoning album, which seems to suggest the band are heroes on a par with soldiers from the US Civil War. Apart from the screamed line, "Time After Time was my least favourite song," it's positive and heartfelt: "The singer, he had long hair/and the drummer he knew restraint/and the bass man he had all the right moves/and the guitar player was no saint."
Nas – Ether
Amy Winehouse's Me And Mr Jones told us how she'd never (ever) miss a Nas show – not for anyone. But Nasir Jones' own song about another artist, from 2001, is rather less complimentary. Hip-hop and grime are full of glorious tit-for-tat tracks but few are as furious and ugly as this tirade against Jay Z and his entourage. It's so aggro, in fact, that we can't really show Nas's words here. Just listen to the track, which was a response to Jay Z's The Takeover.
David Bowie – Lady Stardust
Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were his big heroes but on his 1972 album, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Bowie paid tribute to glam-rock rival (and buddy) Marc Bolan. On Lady Stardust, Bowie acknowledged how the T Rex man paved the way for him and other androgynous pop stars to step into the limelight, singing "people stared at the make-up on his face/laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace." He wasn't quite so nice on 1980's Teenage Wildlife, which is rumoured to be about Gary Numan and other pretenders to his crown.
Neneh Cherry – Buddy X
Neneh Cherry's 1992 album Homebrew didn't set the charts alight quite like her debut Raw Like Sushi did. But it did feature collaborations with Michael Stipe (REM) and Geoff Barrow (Portishead), as well as this furious song that's reportedly about pop-rock guitarist (and Cherry's former touring partner) Lenny Kravitz and his treatment of his then-wife, Lisa Bonet. "Peace and love is all in your head/and the grass is greener playin' 'round."
Justin Timberlake – Cry Me A River
Heartbreak pop made a brilliant comeback on Timberlake's 2002 single Cry Me A River, from his debut solo album Justified. Released after the bitter end of his relationship with Britney Spears, the song is allegedly about the finer details of their break-up. Lines such as "You don't have to say what you did/I already know, I found out from him" appeared to give the world an insight into what went on. Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber have performed the song since their own break up.
Le Tigre – Deceptacon
NOFX's Kill Rock Stars was written about Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin singer and guitarist Kathleen Hanna. It wasn't very nice about her. But Hanna shreds, righteously, and returned the favour in glorious style on Le Tigre's disco-punk classic Deceptacon, from the band's 1999 self-titled debut. The line “Your lyrics are dumb like a linoleum floor/I’ll walk on it/I’ll walk all over you" refers to NOFX's track Linoleum.
Taylor Swift – Bad Blood
This 2014 track unveiled one of pop's biggest beefs, which, until then, had gone under the radar. Reportedly furious about her pop-superstar contemporary Katy Perry nabbing back her favourite tour dancers while she was still on her Red Tour, Swift's Bad Blood is all about backstabbing and ruining a once shiny friendship. There's been tit-for-tat ever since, suggesting the song is definitely about Perry. "Did you think we'd be fine? Still got scars in my back from your knives/So don't think it's in the past/These kind of wounds they last and they last."
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