00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 10 massive hits that actually began their existence as a joke to
00:14those who wrote them.
00:16I'm too sexy for my car, too sexy for my car, too sexy by far.
00:24Stuck in the Middle with You, Steeler's Wheel.
00:34There are few artists, if any, in music history who have been parodied quite as much as the great Bob
00:40Dylan.
00:41As it turns out, one of the most beloved folk rock hits of the 1970s came out of Jerry Rafferty
00:46and Joe Egan doing a spin on Dylan's iconic style.
00:57Steeler's Wheel, Stuck in the Middle with You, was a surprisingly strong seller, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot
01:02100.
01:03In the end, their pretty lighthearted intention became part of the mythology.
01:14Rafferty and Egan set out to imitate the voice and paranoid lyrics of one of music's finest songwriters, but they
01:21succeeded in creating something entirely their own.
01:31Karma Police — Radiohead
01:34Although the song itself is far from a joke, Radiohead's Karma Police was born out of an inside joke the
01:40band used to share amongst themselves long before it found new life.
01:46Karma Police — The members would threaten to call the Karma Police whenever someone behaved badly or irritated them.
02:00This is what you'll get
02:06This is what you'll get
02:09Tom York decided to take this playful idea and craft one of their darkest and most emotionally poignant songs.
02:17This is what you'll get
02:20When you mess with me
02:28To this day, Karma Police is often used as a set-closer summoning up the crowd for one massive sing
02:34-along as the track's huge refrain dies out.
02:37For a minute, I lost myself
02:43Song 2
02:45Blur
02:46At a point in their career where Blur was particularly tired of dealing with record labels, they decided to play
02:52a joke on the executives standing over them.
03:00Song 2 was an attempt at making a release that was loud, fast, and, in their mind, totally primitive, even
03:07seeking an amateurish guitar sound.
03:09They treated it as an exaggerated blast of American alternative rock cliches.
03:22They didn't even give it a proper title.
03:24They did it to provoke their label, but the executives absolutely loved it.
03:29I got my head down
03:32When I was young
03:36It's not my problem
03:38Things managed to backfire even further when it became their biggest hit internationally, effectively acting as a breakthrough to the
03:45U.S. market.
03:46What was initially a joke ended up becoming one of the standout alternative rock songs of the 1990s.
03:52All of the time, I'm never sure why I need you
03:58Because I'm in town
04:00Highway to Hell
04:02ACDC
04:03The Bon Scott era of ACDC was all about the fun of excess.
04:08The title of one of the band's biggest hits, Highway to Hell, was actually their attempt to play with that
04:14very idea.
04:22At the time, ACDC were exhausted by touring, and guitarist Angus Young was asked to describe the experience.
04:29His answer was that the band was on a highway to hell, not knowing that he had just titled one
04:35of the best rock songs of the 1970s.
04:45Sadly, Bon Scott would pass away shortly after its release, giving this era of the band that much more of
04:52a darker tone.
05:02Still, as far as final statements are concerned, Highway to Hell is up there with the best of them.
05:13You gotta fight for your right to party
05:16The Beastie Boys
05:17The funny thing about being in a band is that you really have no control over which songs become hits.
05:23Kick it!
05:27In the case of the Beastie Boys, their debut album produced a major breakout for them with You Gotta Fight
05:33For Your Right To Party, which acted as an introduction to the group for many.
05:37You wake up late for school, man, you don't wanna go!
05:40The song was actually a pretty clear parody of goofy frat party behavior, but the audience seemed to miss the
05:46joke.
05:47You gotta fight for your right to party!
05:54Instead, the Beastie Boys ended up getting labeled as the party rock and hip-hop group, despite the fact that
06:00they had intended to satirize the very thing people associated with them.
06:04You gotta fight for your right to party!
06:11The Beastie Boys may have had to fight for their right to party, but you don't have to fight for
06:16more pop culture.
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06:23You gotta fight for your right to party!
06:30Heart of Glass — Blondie
06:33Those of you who know Blondie's catalog outside of Heart of Glass will be aware that they are most certainly
06:38not a disco group.
06:40Watch out love and it was a gas!
06:44Soon turned out, had a heart of glass!
06:47However, in 1974, a demo entitled Disco Song was created, almost with a touch of irony.
06:54Debbie Harry was indeed a fan of the genre, but it was certainly seen as a cultural enemy of the
06:59punkier pockets of New York that the band had emerged from.
07:13When the time came to release the album Parallel Lines, the song was reworked and released as a single, becoming
07:19a major pop hit.
07:28To this day, it remains one of the band's most beloved songs.
07:39Loser — Beck
07:40In 1991, while Beck was struggling for gigs and money, producer Carl Stevenson recorded him improvising over a homemade beat
07:49built around guitar sounds and samples.
07:56Beck started rapping despite not considering himself a rapper, and was loose and absurd with the lyrics.
08:02When he heard the results, he thought his performance was terrible and mocked himself by declaring,
08:07I'm a loser.
08:18With that, a chorus was born.
08:21The song was a big hit for Beck, but left him with a slacker label that he eventually grew to
08:26resent.
08:36His catalogue is a testament to his versatility as an artist, but for many, loser is still the first thing
08:43that comes to mind when they think of Beck.
08:45I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
08:51I am the walrus.
08:52The Beatles.
08:53By the time 1967 came around, the Beatles had effectively retired from performing live, and had grown far more cynical
09:01and world-weary.
09:02I am he as you are, he as you are me, and we are all together.
09:09John Lennon was particularly fed up with people overanalyzing his lyrics, especially ones that he himself wasn't even certain of
09:17the meaning behind.
09:18After receiving a letter from a student explaining that his teacher was making him study Beatles songs, Lennon decided to
09:23create something nearly impossible to interpret.
09:31I am the walrus was the result, a song that deliberately created an interpretive maze to frustrate people searching for
09:42meanings.
09:47Funnily enough, there are many people who would consider it one of his best songs.
09:52Lennon himself considered it a personal favorite from the era.
10:05Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses
10:13Few songs in the Guns N' Roses catalog have maintained their cultural relevance quite as well as Sweet Child O'
10:20Mine.
10:20What's strange about it is just how randomly it all came together.
10:31Guitarist Slash has described the famous opening riff as something he came up with while messing around rather than a
10:38planned song idea.
10:40He also called it a joke and a stupid exercise, explaining that he liked inventing difficult patterns because he was
10:46never interested in conventional guitar practice.
10:54The band took note, adding the backing instrumentation before Axl Rose took care of the lyrics and vocals.
11:01All of a sudden, a warm-up exercise had produced one of the most acclaimed rock songs of the 1980s.
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11:47Smells Like Teen Spirit
11:49In Kurt Cobain's own words, Smells Like Teen Spirit was an attempt to sound like the Pixies, a band who
11:56had heavily influenced Nirvana's work.
11:58Load up on guns, bring your friends as fun to those who do pretend
12:06On top of that, the title came from Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna, who drunkenly wrote Kurt Smells Like Teen
12:13Spirit on Cobain's apartment wall.
12:15At the time, Kurt had no idea that Teen Spirit was a deodorant marketed towards teenage girls.
12:29Even though the band considered the eventual song itself to be ridiculous and cliched, it became by far and away
12:36their biggest hit.
12:44In their later years, they often skipped Smells Like Teen Spirit on their set list.
12:48Such was their resentment for how popular it eventually became.
13:00But what other examples of hit songs that were conceived as jokes can you name?
13:05Be sure to let us know in the comments down below.
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