10 Bands That Fell Out Over One Song

The entire songwriting process can be a very delicate exercise for any artist. Even though it might seem like the easiest thing in the world to just make up a song on the spot, it sometimes has to be the right time and the right chords aligning before you have something that’s going to have some real hit potential. It’s hard enough to get one person to be satisfied with the final product, so just imagine how it would sound when one of your band members doesn’t like what you made.

Although some of these songs do have their fair share of problems, each of them ended up causing some major tension in the band, either through the creative direction that they were moving in or just the dynamic of the group falling out of whack because of the song. Despite their problems though, these songs did end up seeing the light of day, and ended up turning into some of the biggest hits that the band ever had in some cases.

Now that you’re playing some of these songs night after night, that resentment only grows deeper for some of these artists as time went on, leading to them getting into fights about keeping it in the setlist and even quitting on the spot in some places if they were to play this song again on tour. There’s normally a lot that goes into a band deciding to call it quits, but as far as these acts are concerned, these were the songs that are the embodiment of all that resentment boiling over.

After 1995, Alice in Chains were on the verge of collapse. Fans already had a pretty grim picture of how far Layne Staley had sunk into his addiction, but the self titled Dog record was a different beast, with Staley sounding like a shell of himself and Jerry Cantrell carrying most of the singing. Layne still did have a say in things though, and that caused a bit of friction going into one of the bands’ final singles.

While most Alice fans remember Heaven Beside You, Again was a more uptempo song that was more reminiscent of Alice’s early days…until the breakdown. In the early versions of the songs, Staley’s suggestion was to put ‘doot-doos’ in between the sections to keep the momentum. Even though producer Toby Wright wasn’t a fan of the change, Layne put his foot down and insisted that they be in the final product.

Considering how torn apart his voice sounds during the rest of the song though, just having a bit of levity in the mix helps balance things out. The Dog Record is already pretty depressing as it is, but for a couple seconds, it at least sounds like they’re having fun in the studio.