We’ve all hummed along to the yearning chorus of 'Layla' or the bitter kiss-off of 'Go Your Own Way', but these aren't just clever rhymes designed for the charts.
They are unfiltered, high-stakes messages directed at the people standing in the wings: the lovers, exes and wives whose presence shaped rock history as much as the musicians themselves. These tracks serve as permanent, sonic monuments to private devotion and public heartbreak.
To understand the song, you must first meet the person who inspired the pen. Below, we pull back the curtain on the real-life muses behind rock’s most legendary confessions.
1. '(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Like many of the songs on Nick Cave’s 1997 album The Boatman’s Call, ‘(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?’ sees Cave reflecting on personal relationships and love affairs that have had a profound effect on him. The subject of his affections is a little speculative, as it could either be his son’s mother, Viviane Carneiro, or PJ Harvey, with whom Cave had a relationship before he recorded this album. The pair performed together on his prior album Murder Ballads.
‘Songwriting completely consumed me at that time,’ Cave wrote in his newsletter, The Red Hand Files. ‘It was not what I did, but what I was. It was the very essence of me. Polly’s commitment to her own work was probably as narcissistic and egomaniacal as my own, although I was so deep into my own s*** that I can’t really comment on this with any certainty.
'I remember our time together with great fondness though, they were happy days, and the phone call hurt; but never one to waste a good crisis, I set about completing The Boatman’s Call. [The album] cured me of Polly Harvey. It also changed the way I made music. The record was an artistic rupture in itself, to which I owe a great debt.’
We named Nick Cave as one of the greatest Australian rock musicians.
2. 'Go Your Own Way' by Fleetwood Mac
The love affairs and heartbreaks of Fleetwood Mac are well documented, with much of the drama culminating in their era-defining 1977 album Rumours, from which ‘Go Your Own Way’ is taken. Written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham, the song is all about his break-up with bandmate Stevie Nicks – who shared her own side of the story in songs such as ‘Dreams’.
On the podcast Song Exploder, Buckingham explained that the song was ‘written almost as a stream of consciousness’. He wrote it as a way of ‘coming to terms with the fact that [he] may not be over this person and, at the same time, [he’s] aware that [he’s] got to accept what’s happened and move on’.
3. 'Layla' by Eric Clapton
Written for the supergroup Derek and the Dominos, ‘Layla’ is fuelled by Eric Clapton’s unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the model and photographer who was married to Clapton’s friend, George Harrison (of Beatles fame). Fortunately for Clapton, the desire wasn’t unrequited for too long: he and Boyd eventually married after she divorced Harrison.
The title is inspired by the ancient Arabic story of Layla and Majnun, a tragedy about a seventh-century Arabian poet and his lover, who is married off to a man she doesn’t love. It wasn’t the only song Clapton wrote with Boyd in mind – after she divorced Harrison in 1977, Clapton wrote the love ballad ‘Wonderful Tonight’ for her.
4. 'Tangled Up in Blue' by Bob Dylan
Written in the summer of 1975 shortly after Bob Dylan and his wife Sara Dylan separated, ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ features on the album Blood on the Tracks, much of which is preoccupied with the tensions in and ultimate demise of their relationship. Dylan supposedly spent a weekend listening to Joni Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue, before beginning work on his own album of heartbreak and relationship breakdown.
While the lyrics might not explicitly be autobiographical, the tone of the content is undeniably so – a collection of images based on a fractured relationship, taken at different moments within its course.
5. 'And I Love Her' by The Beatles
Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney shared all the writing credits of the Beatles songs, ‘And I Love Her’ was primarily McCartney’s work, inspired by his girlfriend Jane Asher. ‘It was the first ballad I impressed myself with,’ McCartney told biographer Barry Miles in the book Many Years From Now. ‘It was a love song really.’
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, McCartney described the song and the story it told. ‘Precisely because Jane was my girlfriend, I wanted to tell her there that I loved her, so that’s what initially inspired this song; that’s what it was.’
6. 'Scandalous' by Prince
Although ‘Scandalous’ is a romantic ballad, it’s not technically about a love affair – but it’s long been associated with one. Written for the 1989 Batman soundtrack, the song was released against the backdrop of Prince’s intense connection with the actress Kim Basinger, who starred in the film as Vicki Vale. An extended version of the song was subsequently released, titled The Scandalous Sex Suite, which Basinger appeared on.
The pair had a brief romantic relationship around this time, having met during the filming of Batman.
7. 'Chelsea Hotel #2' by Leonard Cohen
In another surprising musical romance, ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’ is inspired by Leonard Cohen’s brief dalliance with Janis Joplin at the Chelsea Hotel in New York in the spring of 1968.
The lyrics of the song are particularly explicit, compared to some of the more opaque offerings listed here – ‘I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were talking so brave and so free,’ Cohen sings. ‘Giving me h*** on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street’. One of rock's most troubled souls, Joplin died just a couple of years later, tragically young at just 27.
8. 'You Make Loving Fun' by Fleetwood Mac
Another song from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – but this one about the demise and beginnings of an entirely different relationship. It was a tough time for all band members, with relationships breaking down for them all.
Christine McVie wrote and performed ‘You Make Loving Fun’ after her divorce from bandmate John McVie. The song was inspired by her affair with the band’s lighting designer, Curry Grant – but she told John that it was about her dog, ‘to avoid flare-ups’.
9. 'A Case of You' by Joni Mitchell
With great love affairs so often comes great heartbreak – and Canadian musician Joni Mitchell’s fourth studio album, Blue, captures this better than most. Created just after her break-up with Graham Nash and during an intense relationship with James Taylor, the album tackles all the complicated facets of a relationship.
The album’s centrepiece, ‘A Case of You’, captures the majesty of love in its most devastating forms. It’s tainted with the sorrows of ending, its opening line reading, ‘Just before our love got lost’. ‘You taste so bitter and so sweet’, Mitchell sings, distilling the song’s theme about the bittersweet nature of love and loss.
We named Blue as one of the best break-up albums.
10. 'Pale Blue Eyes' by The Velvet Underground
Lou Reed reflects on his first love, Shelley Albin, in ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ – and the tragedy of her being married to someone else, having her out of reach. ‘The fact that you are married only proves you’re my best friend/But it’s truly, truly a sin’, he sings, yearning for something – and someone – he cannot have.
11. 'Ruby Tuesday' by the Rolling Stones
In 1964, Keith Richards met the young model Linda Keith. The pair embarked on a whirlwind relationship for the next two years, the first of its kind for both of them. In 1966, Linda left him in heartbreak. ‘The thing about being a songwriter is, even if you’ve been f***ed over, you can find consolation in writing about it, and pour it out,’ he said. ‘Basically, Linda is “Ruby Tuesday”.’
In the book According to the Rolling Stones, he confirmed that the song was likely inspired by Linda Keith. ‘It was probably written about Linda Keith not being there,’ he said. ‘I don’t know, she had p***ed off somewhere. It was very mournful, very, very Ruby Tuesday, and it was a Tuesday.’
- The night the 1960s died: the Rolling Stones' notorious Altamont debacle
- 1965 albums: ranking the 15 greatest LPs from the year rock grew up
All images: Getty Images
