Music <\/p>\n
You have no idea how many famous songs are quietly written behind the scenes by totally different superstars. In the music industry, it\u2019s surprisingly common for a major artist to write a song and then hand it off to somebody else to record. Sometimes those tracks become even bigger hits than anything the songwriter performs themselves!<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happened with the songs on this list. From Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles to Dolly Parton and Sia, these stars all secretly penned massive hits for other singers. You probably never realized who was behind these songs when they first hit the radio\u2014but you definitely will now.<\/p>\n
Related: <\/strong>Ten Singers Who Absolutely Detest One of Their Hit Songs<\/a><\/p>\n One Direction \u2013 Little Things<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Back when he was just a teenager, singer Ed Sheeran wrote a song called \u201cLittle Things\u201d along with a friend of his named Fiona Bevan. For a few years after that, the song was lost to time, and Sheeran became a superstar performer thanks to plenty of his own hit tracks. But after a while, Bevan rediscovered the song, mused over its origin, and sent it to Sheeran. Ed thought that it was pretty good, and so he played it one day for the boy band One Direction. Sure enough, the group of guys absolutely loved it. They enjoyed it so much, in fact, that they claimed it for their 2012 album Take Me Home<\/em>. And just like that, years later, it saw the light of day!<\/p>\n After 1D picked up the song and put it on their album, Sheeran mused to a media outlet about how he had written the song so many years earlier, while not even thinking that it could one day be used by a boy band to rocket to fame. He was also happy about how the group used the acoustic sound of the track to develop a slightly different persona for themselves, too. \u201cI think they just wanted to try something different,\u201d Sheeran said. \u201cI think they did the same formula with the last single\u2014it sounded like a One Direction song\u2014and now I think they want to switch it up a bit.\u201d Switch it up, they did\u2026 with a song that nobody had any idea was written by a separate superstar.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Miley Cyrus \u2013 Party In The U.S.A. (Official Video)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Jessie J may have a pop music career of her own, having recorded major singles such as \u201cBang Bang\u201d with other singers and performers like Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande. But before all that happened, Jessie J was making most of her money\u2014okay, all of her money\u2014through songwriting! The most famous track she penned? Miley Cyrus\u2019s hit single \u201cParty in the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n The song did so well that Jessie J earned herself a really nice cut of royalties for writing it. As Miley recorded it, and then started performing it live, and then took it to the radio for major international airplay, Jessie J enjoyed the significant royalties from it. \u201c\u2018Party In The USA\u2019 paid my rent for, like, three years,\u201d Jessie J told Glamour UK back in 2015. \u201cActually, it was way longer than that. That\u2019s where I get most of my money. I write songs. I\u2019m a singer. I love endorsements and stuff, but that\u2019s all added on.\u201d Not bad.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Harry Styles knows a thing or two about penning romantic ballads. The former One Direction standout loves to belt out ballads more than anything else he does on stage or in the studio. And so when it came time for another singer to belt out her own ballad, Harry was right there and ready to write! The singer was Ariana Grande, and the song was \u201cJust a Little Bit of Your Heart.\u201d Harry had decided to visit Grande while she was in the recording studio. Once there, producers Savan Kotecha and Johan Carlsson asked Harry if he\u2019d be down to write a song for her. Just like that! Harry quickly helped put together a track that made it onto her 2014 album My Everything<\/em>.<\/p>\n Recalling how that all went down\u2014and how it happened so quickly, too\u2014Grande told MTV about it: \u201c[Harry] went into the other room and they were writing for a while and I remember when I heard it I was like, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s a really strong verse, that\u2019s really beautiful.\u2019 And then the pre, I was like, \u2018wow, that\u2019s a really beautiful pre, that\u2019s a really strong pre!\u2019 And then the chorus, I was, like, crying!\u201d It really was that quick\u2014Harry gave Ariana a hit single for her album in very short order.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n By now, Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s hit song \u201cIrreplaceable\u201d is a pop culture staple. Just hearing the title alone can get your brain singing the chorus to yourself, and it\u2019ll be stuck in your head rolling around for the rest of the day. (Sorry about that.) But did you know that it was R&B crooner Ne-Yo who initially wrote the track? And not only that, but he at first wanted to keep it for himself to record and perform, rather than farm it out to Beyonc\u00e9?<\/p>\n Speaking about it in 2011, Ne-Yo admitted that he regrets giving up the song to another singer, even if it did become a hit. \u201cI honestly wrote that song for myself,\u201d Ne-Yo told Choice FM when they asked him about Queen Bey\u2019s hit. \u201cHowever, a man singing it comes across a little bit misogynistic, a little bit mean.\u201d So, he gave the song up.<\/p>\n And while he regrets losing out on the track on his own, Ne-Yo also learned quite a bit from the entire process. \u201cThat song actually taught me a very interesting lesson,\u201d he mused. \u201cMen and women don\u2019t actually think that much differently in the grand scheme of things.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Britney Spears \u2013 Till The World Ends (Official Video)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Ke$ha may have risen to national (and international) public consciousness with her hit single \u201cTik Tok,\u201d but she was recording tracks long before that. She was also writing tracks, too. And many of the songs that she penned wound up in the hands of other artists who made them famous! Among her many songwriting credits include tracks for artists like The Veronicas and the K-pop group Girls\u2019 Generation, both going down in the mid-2000s. But did you know she also wrote for pop superstar Britney Spears?<\/p>\n The track \u201cTill The World Ends,\u201d which appeared on Spears\u2019 2011 album Femme Fatale<\/em>, was a Ke$ha-written track. Obviously, it takes teams of people to make pop stars happen. Plenty of producers work behind the scenes to engineer and perfect the sound of every single song. But as it turned out, Kesha helped give Britney Spears\u2019 mid-career run another boost by offering up a catchy and powerful track to turn heads.[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Beyonc\u00e9 \u2013 Pretty Hurts (Video)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Sia wrote the song \u201cPretty Hurts\u201d with the intention of having it recorded by Katy Perry. The only problem was that Katy didn\u2019t check her email! So, Sia penned the song with the high hopes that it would one day become a hit. But when she didn\u2019t hear from Katy, she turned around and sent the song to Rihanna. Sadly, Rihanna\u2019s manager also sat on the song for a very long time\u2014for eight months, to be exact\u2014without doing anything with it. Frustrated by that, Sia turned around and shared the track with Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s management team. Immediately, they loved it. Unlike Katy and Rihanna before them, Beyonc\u00e9 closed the deal.<\/p>\n That left Katy pretty mad in the end! After Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s version began to rise up the charts, Katy contacted Sia with a message: \u201cI\u2019m pretty hurt you never sent me this song.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comment, and realizing that Katy must not have known that she actually was Sia\u2019s first choice for the song, the songwriter-turned-singer responded with three little words: \u201ccheck your email.\u201d Good advice, that. Better to check the inbox than miss out on a potentially career-changing opportunity.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Kelly Clarkson \u2013 Breakaway (Official Video)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Kelly Clarkson may be forever and inextricably tied to the hit \u201cBreakaway,\u201d but she wasn\u2019t the one who wrote it. It wasn\u2019t a bunch of faceless, nameless producers, either: it was actually Avril Lavigne! The Canadian pop-punk singer might not seem like a likely source of a power ballad like that, but she wrote the track along with two songwriters while reflecting on her difficult youth. Avril wanted to capture that with words and put it down to music, and bam! We\u2019d say she did a pretty darn good job\u2014even if the track eventually went to Kelly to record and release.<\/p>\n Speaking about Avril\u2019s songwriting abilities to the outlet Songwriter Universe back in 2012, Bridget Benenate\u2014who co-wrote the song with Avril\u2014explained: \u201cAvril talked about her life and what things were important to her \u2013 she was the inspiration for the song.\u201d That\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s quite the shock to learn that the girl who was made famous by the goofy and lighthearted single \u201cSk8er Boi\u201d had so much of an inner life as to write \u201cBreakaway\u201d and turn it into such a hit. We bet Kelly Clarkson feels quite a bit of gratitude for that one.[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Cee Lo Green \u2013 Forget You<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Cee Lo Green was thrust into mainstream pop success when his acerbic pop track \u201cForget You\u201d was released in 2010. The song is about a spurned guy who is mad at being passed over by a girl, and it was an immediate hit. But it wasn\u2019t created and developed by Cee Lo Green alone. In fact, Cee Lo was actually just the recipient of some very good luck bestowed upon him by a much bigger superstar singer: Bruno Mars!<\/p>\n In 2011, Bruno revealed during an appearance on the Graham Norton Show<\/em> over in the UK that he was indeed the writer of \u201cForget You\u201d before giving it to Cee Lo to record. Oh, and the song had a much more risqu\u00e9 title at first: \u201cF**k You.\u201d Yeah, THAT! Obviously, you can\u2019t really get radio airplay with a song that goes by that title. So Bruno cleaned it up a bit, shipped it off to Cee Lo Green to record, and the rest is history.[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Whitney Houston \u2013 I Will Always Love You (Official 4K Video)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n We will forever link \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d with the incredible singer Whitney Houston, as well as the use of the song in the 1992 movie The Bodyguard<\/em>. But the original song is actually several decades older than that\u2014and it wasn\u2019t written by Whitney, a bunch of producers, or even a team of R&B artists who knew they\u2019d find a singer to really belt it out. It was first written by Dolly Parton! When she penned the powerful ballad in 1974, Dolly was broken up over having to leave her mentor Porter Wagoner\u2019s show and strike out on her own. So she wrote the track to explain to him through music just what he\u2019d meant to her career and life.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Porter, sit down. I\u2019ve written something I think you need to hear,\u2019\u201d Dolly told the newspaper The Tennessean<\/em> in 2015. \u201cI started singing \u2018I Will Always Love You,\u2019 and he started crying. When I finished, he said, \u2018Well, hell! If you feel that strong about it, just go on\u2014providing I get to produce that record because that\u2019s the best song you ever wrote.\u2019\u201d Wagoner certainly wasn\u2019t wrong about that\u2026 even if it took the rest of the world another 18 years to fully appreciate it when Whitney made it her own.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Sia has already appeared on this list for giving Beyonc\u00e9 a track that she\u2019d originally meant for Katy Perry, and now here she pops up again! The Australian singer was such a prolific songwriter in her spare time that she actually wrote another massive hit for another separate artist: \u201cDiamonds\u201d for Rihanna! And to make things even more impressive, there\u2019s this fact, too: Sia wrote \u201cDiamonds\u201d in only 14 minutes. Talk about a sudden flurry of inspiration!<\/p>\n In 2018, prolific pop music producing duo Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen spoke to Entertainment Weekly<\/em> about recording that song for Rihanna. They revealed that the Barbadian singer loved Sia\u2019s lyrics so much, as well as adoring how Sia sounded when she sang the track as a demo, that Rihanna spent days making sure to get the inflection and attitude just right. \u201cRihanna really went to work on that song because she wanted to capture that character that Sia has in her voice,\u201d Hermansen told EW<\/em> at the time. \u201cIt was very important for her to capture that feeling, and she did it so well that Sia thought it was her [own voice on the song].\u201d Pretty impressive on both counts.[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nMusic 10<\/span> Ed Sheeran, \u201cLittle Things\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 9<\/span> Jessie J, \u201cParty in the USA\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 8<\/span> Harry Styles, \u201cJust a Little Bit of Your Heart\u201d <\/h2>\n
Music 7<\/span> Ne-Yo, \u201cIrreplaceable\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 6<\/span> Ke$ha, \u201cTill The World Ends\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 5<\/span> Sia, \u201cPretty Hurts\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 4<\/span> Avril Lavigne, \u201cBreakaway\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 3<\/span> Bruno Mars, \u201cForget You\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 2<\/span> Dolly Parton, \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d<\/h2>\n
Music 1<\/span> Sia, \u201cDiamonds\u201d<\/h2>\n
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