Great Songs Written by the Drummer

Singing drummers aside.

1. Rock the Casbah
2. Layla (the piano coda, at least)

umm....

the entire Flying Luttenbachers discography

all the great husker du songs written by grant hart

The Beatles - Octopus's Garden

Phil Collins to thread.

kraaaaaaaam

Husker Du sprung to mind but Algerian Goalkeeper is wrong. Bob Mould wins that one ;

i think you misunderstand what i said

POLL: Best songwriter in Queen

mind you, i missed the singing drummers aside bit so it doesnt count anyway

I fucked it up too goalkeeper.Bob Mould was never a drummer as as far as I am aware. Even his drum programming that has come out, is average

i missed the singing drummers aside bit

Me too. This will be a very short thread.

yeah i think pretty much all of us missed it

also the 'songs' bit

cold chisel's when the war is over & forever now, written by drummer steve prestwich (who didn't sing either one)

Tommy Stupid for all the great Stupids songs. Surely?

The Who - "Wasp Man"

Didn't Peter Prescott write a couple of good 'uns for Burma?

good call

I think I read somewhere that Everybody Hurts was written by Bill Berry.

That's correct.

That's correct.

bernard purdie - soul drums

I think I read somewhere that Everybody Hurts was written by Bill Berry

It says great songs written by the drummer though.

Somebody more into the Descendents/All than me should come rep for Bill Stevenson.

does 'touched' by mbv count? i mean it's not a 'great' song per se i guess

"Sister Christian"

"marigold" and "scentless apprentice" were written by dave grohl.

"Beth" - Kiss (co-writing credit)

Gotta Keep Movin' - MC5

The Nerves - "Working Too Hard"

Cream-Those Were The Days

Bill Berry also wrote Perfect Circle.

Nothing by Neil Peart?

"Love Is You" by Redd Kross, though I'm relying on an old Xgau review for the drummer angle as I haven't personally checked the credits.

The Police - "Does Everyone Stare?"

Actually, only the chorus is great; the verses, lyrically, sound like Copeland is trying to out-Sting Sting. If it was intended as a parody, it's a pretty good one.

Does jazz count? Because there's plenty of great jazz tunes written by drummers who don't sing. The first one that comes to mind is "Afro Blue", written by Mongo Santamaria (though the versions by John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner are probably more famous than Mongo's original).

It's obviously not a great song, but America by Razorlight was written by the drummer.

It's the one everyone likes best of theirs.

This is true, and what I've heard by the drummer's new band is better than anything else I've heard by Razorlight.

I think that's why he left.

'Love is You' by Redd Kross was written by guitarist Robert Hecker.

The Police - "Does Everyone Stare?"
Actually, only the chorus is great; the verses, lyrically, sound like Copeland is trying to out-Sting Sting. If it was intended as a parody, it's a pretty good one.

Copeland only sings the first verse (before the song really starts), and he mostly mumbles it; that really is Sting. Actually Copeland wrote a few of the Police's great tunes - "Contact", "Bombs Away", and "Rehumanize Yourself" are all ace, and the Klark Kent collection of "rejected" Police songs is awesome!

Not really sure who else to name in this thread, but Yukihiro Takahashi wrote a lot of great YMO songs even though he was technically just the drummer...

Klaus Dinger, maybe? (does that really count since he's always been the bandleader?)

how are we defining "writing" here? Lyrics only, or both lyrics and music? For instance, Neil Peart (mentioned above) wrote most of Rush's lyrics (I think), but not the music. Albert Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult sings all of the songs that he is solely credited with, but he co-wrote many of the group's other tracks, which of course were sung by Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma or Joe Bouchard. Tough questions for a tough thread. Seems to me this is likely to become a "list any song written by a drummer but sung by someone else" thread.

http://www.progblog.de/uploads/vander-1970.jpg

dominique otm

Yes - 5% For Nothing, written by Bill Bruford but only 30 seconds long. Should've been longer though.

Univers Zero - everything written by Daniel Denis, i.e. over 50% of their early and best albums.