The Fascinating True Stories Behind Famous Songs

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It doesn't get sweeter than this heartfelt John Legend song. Chrissy Teigen said she knew right away that the song was about her. "The first line of it is 'What would I do without your smart mouth,' so if that's not about me I don't know what is," she told The Huffington Post.

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This mega-recognizable hit was written after a Queen concert in 1977. "'We Will Rock You' was a response to a particular phase in Queen's career, when the audience was becoming a bigger part of the show than we were," Brian May explained in an interview. "So, both Freddie and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to write a song with audience participation specifically in mind."

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Fleetwood Mac was famous for not only their music, but also their tangled love lives. But out of all of that drama, they created several iconic songs, including "Go Your Own Way," which Lindsey Buckingham wrote as a breakup message directed at Stevie Nicks.

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Of course, Stevie Nicks had her own take on her breakup with Lindsey Buckingham. Speaking to Q magazine, she later said, "It was the fairy and the gnome. I was trying to be all philosophical. And he was just mad."

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Within the first verse, this song name-drops several of Ariana Grande's ex-boyfriends, including Pete Davidson, Mac Miller, Ricky Alvarez, and Big Sean. So, obviously, the song is about past relationships, but also about "gratitude, growth, embracing our path bumps n all," the singer once wrote on Twitter.

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In 1973, Dolly Parton had hit a roadblock in her relationship with Porter Wagoner, her mentor and on-screen duet partner. He reportedly wasn't ready to see her go out and make her own career ― until she sang this song to him and he relented.

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Many people believe that the upbeat 1980s hit from Billy Joel was inspired by Christie Brinkley. But in an interview on The Howard Stern Show in 2010, Billy clarified that the song was actually inspired by a number of women ― including Christie and Elle Macpherson, who he was dating when he began writing the song.

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After entering a treatment center for addiction in 2010, Demi Lovato released this triumphant song in the summer of 2011. "This song is so special to me because it's inspired by my journey and the struggles that I've dealt with this past year," the singer wrote for Seventeen.

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According to the singer-songwriter, plenty of people think that the story behind this song involves Sara Bareilles marching into her record label's office and telling them she wouldn't write a love song. But she later said it "wasn't that simple."

The real story is that she went through some difficult co-writing sessions at the direction of her record label, but ultimately penned the now-famous song, which she says is "a love song to my craft."

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One of No Doubt's most famous hits was written by Gwen Stefani after she broke up with the group's bassist, Tony Kanal. "It used to be more upbeat, more of a Seventies rock-type thing," she told The Independent. "[When] Tony and I broke up ... it turned into a sad song."

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Tony Kanal isn't the only guy Gwen's written songs about. There was plenty of speculation that her 2016 song "Make Me Like You" was about her now-husband Blake Shelton, thanks to lyrics like "Why'd you have to go and make me like you?/ Yeah this is a feeling I'm not used to." She eventually confirmed it in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

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Of course, Blake Shelton has also written songs about Gwen Stefani — including this steamy song where he says "She's Revlon red in the blackest night." Gwen is a global ambassador for Revlon and frequently wears red lipstick during public appearances.

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Garth Brooks debuted this sweet tearjerker about his wife of over 15 years, Trisha Yearwood, at the 2018 CMA Awards. She was sitting front and center as he sang about all the ways she's been his stronger half during their marriage.

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In 2013, Miley Cyrus swung back into the music scene on a giant wrecking ball. The unforgettable music video, in which she emotionally sang about her breakup from Liam Hemsworth, quickly became one of the songs of the year. Five years later, the singer told Howard Stern how her former love was "the only relationship I'd been in that's real." Although she and the Australian actor reconnected and married in 2018, they finalized their divorce in January 2020.

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Taylor Swift wrote this song about John Mayer, who she dated from late 2009 to early 2010. He told Rolling Stone that he felt "really humiliated" by the song. "It made me feel terrible," he said. "Because I didn’t deserve it. I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do." Yikes.

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This song about Katy Perry is an important chapter in one of the biggest pop culture feuds of all time. Taylor Swift said she wrote it about another female pop star who "basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me." It didn't take long for people to figure out she was talking about Katy.

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Not too long after "Bad Blood" came out, Katy released this song. She said it was an "anti-bullying anthem," but it was, uh, pretty shady. Luckily, Katy and Taylor Swift eventually made up ― Katy even appeared in the music video for Taylor's song "You Need to Calm Down."

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Taylor Swift isn't the only famous person Katy Perry has written a song about. Though she's happily with Orlando Bloom now, it turns out that her "One That Got Away" tune is about none other than Josh Groban. Katy revealed this fact to James Corden, saying Josh was "one of my good friends."

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In a 2005 interview with MTV, Kelly Clarkson said that this single is about "the cycle of families, like you act how your parents acted towards you and then your kids act how you acted towards them, and it's all about breaking that cycle if it was a bad one." It was reportedly inspired by her own parents' divorce when she was six years old.

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Kelly Clarkson's 2015 hit, "Piece by Piece" is also about her childhood and her parents ― although it's through a different lens this time. She was inspired by her feelings towards her own daughter, River. She told Glamour, "It's a positive song, even though I know it sounds sad. I don't know what my father went through as a child, and I don't know why he left and made the decisions he made, but everyone's human."