10 incredible songs written in 30 minutes (or less!)

23 October 2025, 15:09

Elton John, George Michael and Ed Sheeran are just some of the artists who’ve penned a hit in record time.

There’s no easy formula to creating the perfect song.

When it comes to music-making, most artists put a lot of effort into trying to produce the next hit.

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That said, sometimes stars have successfully created legendary pieces of music with surprisingly little time spent sweating about every detail.

Keep reading to learn about ten hit songs that were written in just 30 minutes or less!

‘Your Song’ by Elton John

Elton John’s breakout hit ‘Your Song’ was written by Elton in collaboration with his lyricist Bernie Taupin over breakfast one morning.

Speaking with Good Morning Britain in 2023, Bernie clarified about the story: “When you talk about a song being written in 10 minutes or 15 minutes, there’s a slight bit of urban legend to that.

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“I’m not sure that I wrote ‘Your Song’ in 10 minutes. It may have been 15 minutes or half an hour, all I can tell you is that it was a short time period.”

Elton John - Your Song (Top Of The Pops 1971)

‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen

Freddie Mercury wrote Queen’s 1979 track ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ in ten minutes.

“'Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ took me five or 10 minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords,” he told Melody Maker magazine in 1981.

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In their Queen the Greatest web series, Roger Taylor added that the song came to Freddie when he was in the bath.

“Freddie wrote it very quickly and rushed in and put it down with the boys. By the time I got there, it was almost done,” Brian May added.

Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Official Video)

‘Careless Whisper’ by George Michael

George Michael famously penned his best-known song when he was just 17, sitting on a bus.

Speaking about how he came up with the song’s iconic sax line, George shared in his autobiography Bare: “I can remember very vaguely where I was when I wrote things after Wham! got off the ground, but with 'Careless Whisper' I remember exactly the time and place...

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“I was handing the money over to the guy on the bus and I got this line, the sax line: der-der-der-der, der-der-der-der. Then he moved away and I continued writing it in my head. I wrote it totally in my head.”

While it took months for George to perfect, and a few more years before he would go on to record the track, ‘Careless Whisper’ is just one example of a hit song that came about in a spark of a moment.

George Michael - Careless Whisper (Official Video)

‘Hometown Glory’ by Adele

Youth appears to aid artists in writing a hit in incredible time.

Adele penned her debut single ‘Hometown Glory’ in just ten minutes when she was 16 years old.

Inspired by her love of London, the future Grammy-winner wrote the song in a moment of annoyance at her mother for suggesting she move away from her hometown for university, and after being empowered by taking part in an anti Iraq war protest with some of her school friends.

Adele - Hometown Glory (Official Music Video)

‘Photograph’ by Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran revealed he wrote his 2014 hit ‘Photograph’ while working on the road with his co-writer, Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.

“He just had a loop on his laptop that he just put down that was just a three-note piano thing and I just started singing over that ‘loving can hurt, loving can hurt’, and then the song just kinda fell out within about ten minutes,” Ed told Heart’s Kevin Hughes in 2015.

“It was pretty cool.”

Ed Sheeran - Photograph (Official Music Video)

‘All I Want for Christmas’ by Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s Christmas sensation was penned by her and her co-writer Walter Afanasieff in just 15 minutes.

In an interview with Billboard, Walter recalled how the pair got together to write the main part of the song, but everything came together very quickly from that.

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Mariah’s memory of writing the song notoriously clashes with Walter’s memory, but also suggests she penned the song in a brief moment of festive cheer.

In her 2019 documentary, Mariah suggested the song came to her in a “happy accident.”

“I said, ‘Let me try and get in the Christmas spirit’... I put on It’s a Wonderful Life downstairs, you could hear it throughout the house. I went into this little small room and there was a little keyboard in there and I started playing.”

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You (Official Video)

‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ by The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones’ Keith Rickards wrote one of the band’s best-known hits after waking up in the middle of the night with the melody stuck in his head.

Realising he had something worth recording, he hastily grabbed a tape recorder and played the eight-note riff he’d invented along with the mumbled vocal ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ before falling back asleep.

“I had no idea I'd written it,” he shared in his memoir Life. “When I woke up in the morning, the tape had run out.

“I put it back on, and there’s this, maybe, 30 seconds of ‘Satisfaction,’ in a very drowsy sort of rendition. And then it suddenly – the guitar goes ‘CLANG,’ and then there’s like 45 minutes of snoring.”

The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Official Lyric Video)

‘The River of Dreams’ by Billy Joel

Another nighttime creation, Billy Joel’s ‘The River of Dreams’ came to the artist in a dream, as the name suggests.

"I woke up one day and I just had this idea, and it was fully realized in my mind, the melodic and the chord idea," Billy shared in the 1993 Shades of Grey documentary (via Ultimate Classic Rock).

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"I don't know why it kept coming back to me. It was so strong that I had to flesh this thing out."

Billy Joel - The River Of Dreams (Official HD Video)

‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles

‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles is a third example of a song taking a musician by surprise in the middle of the night.

After Paul McCartney first heard the melody while dreaming one, he spent some time trying to work out if he might have heard it somewhere else before.

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In his book The Lyrics, he shared: “After a couple of weeks, it became clear that no one knew the song and it didn't exist, except in my head.

“So I claimed it and spent time playing around with it, adding to it and perfecting it. It was like finding a 10 pound note on the street.”

Yesterday (Remastered 2009)

‘What’d I Say’ by Ray Charles

Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’ was composed during a happy accident in 1958.

While giving a live performance, Ray came to realise he was running out of material before his performance time was due to end.

Pressured by the audience to deliver an encore he didn’t have, the young artist improvised a new track in the moment, and it was such a hit, he later went on to record it – giving the world ‘What’d I Say’ forever more.

What'd I Say