These 23 Famous Songs Were Written In 30 Minutes Or Less, And I Can't Even Make My Bed In That Time

Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" was a moment.

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Writing the perfect song doesn't come easy, and for some songwriters, it can take days, months, even years to craft a hit!

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However, on occasion, artists have been known to pen hits in a matter of minutes.

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Here are 23 tracks that were finished up in less time than it takes to get your food delivered.

1. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses was written in five minutes.

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You don't even have to be a fan of this band to know this song — it's that famous! It all started when Axl Rose overheard his fellow members Slash and Izzy Stradlin messing around with guitar riffs. He took that as an opportunity to start writing lyrics inspired by his then-girlfriend Erin Everly, and a hit was born.

In an interview with Hit Parader, Duff McKagan revealed that he didn't take the song seriously at first. "It was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda like a joke because we thought, 'what is this song? It's gonna be nothing. It'll be filler on the record.'"

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2. Eminem wrote "Rap God" in six minutes, one second.

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Eminem is a gifted lyricist with a unique rap style, and his creativity didn't go amiss in the song "Rap God." In an interview with Sway Calloway on Shade 45, the rapper spoke about the process of the song. "The beat was so crazy when I first heard it. It just made me wanna write. For some reason, that hook popped in my head, and it kind of took off from there. It took six minutes. I free-styled it, that was off the top of the dome."

Aftermath / Shady / Interscope

3. Meghan Trainor's track "Lips Are Movin" was written in eight minutes.

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After Meghan's song "All About That Bass" topped the charts, she made sure that no one was going to call her a one-hit-wonder. Her hit single "Lips Are Movin" proved she was here to stay, and she recalled writing the song in eight minutes with Kevin Kadish.

“It was the last song I got to write with [Kevin Kadish] for the album. And…it was the fastest song I’ve ever wrote in my life. We wrote it in eight minutes. I kind of freaked out ’cause I looked at the clock, I was like, 'Wait a second, did we start this eight minutes ago?' And we freaked out and realized, 'Yeah!'" Meghan has said.

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4. Adele wrote her debut hit, "Hometown Glory," in under 10 minutes.

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Adele never fails to pull at our heartstrings, and at just 16 years old, the singer found the inspiration for "Hometown Glory." After fighting with her mother about where she wanted to go to university, she locked herself in her room and wrote the masterpiece in 10 minutes.

"It's called 'Hometown Glory,' and it was all about how I felt about London and stuff like that. I actually wrote it on guitar, and I was at school at the time. I actually find this song really emotional now because since so much has happened since I wrote it, and it's been like 11 years since I wrote it. So my whole career has happened, and it's one of my favorites still, to this day," she told Billboard.

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5. Lady Gaga wrote her breakout single "Just Dance" in 10 minutes.

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I still feel privileged to have gone to a Lady Gaga concert when she was coming up, and yes, she performed "Just Dance." The songstress wrote the song with producers Akon and RedOne, and in an interview with Heat magazine, she revealed that it took a short amount of time to write. "It's been unbelievable the way the song has crossed over into the mainstream. It took 10 minutes to write!"

Streamline / Kon / Live / Cherrytree / Interscope

6. Ed Sheeran said his single "Photograph" "fell out" in 10 minutes.

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If listening to this song isn't enough to make you ball your eyes out, then the music video will surely make you want to curl up on the sofa with a box of tissues. After Ed heard a few notes from Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid, it urged the singer to write about a recent heartbreak.

"I wrote it with Johnny from Snow Patrol, and he just had a loop on his laptop that he just put down that was just a three-note piano thing. I just started singing over that, 'loving can hurt, loving can hurt,' and then the song just kinda fell out within about 10 minutes," he told Capital FM.

Asylum / Atlantic

7. Charlie Puth wrote the famous movie hit "See You Again" in 10 minutes.

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Who would've thought that a few chords on a piano and Charlie singing, "It's been a long day" would develop into a Grammy-nominated, worldwide hit? Well, Charlie certainly didn't! In an interview with MTV News, the singer spoke about writing the soundtrack in only 10 minutes. "I wrote the song on July 17 at 6pm. I know that because I have it saved in my phone, the lyric note. … I want to frame that. I wrote it in 10 minutes, which is very unusual. Usually, songs take a little bit longer to write for me."

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8. Freddie Mercury wrote "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in 10 minutes.

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A lightbulb moment can happen at any time, and for Freddie, it was while he was having a bubble bath. He was heavily influenced by his musical heroes Elvis Presley and Sir Cliff Richard, so "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was penned as a tribute to them. "[It] took me 5 or 10 minutes," Freddie said in a 1981 interview with Melody Maker. "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."

EMI / Elektra

9. Lizzo's "Cuz I Love You" was written in 10 minutes.

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If you ever need someone to give you that extra boost, Lizzo is the ultimate turn-up queen. Everything about her is lovable, and her song "Cuz I Love You" pushed her flute to the side and really showed off her powerful voice. To celebrate the song's release in 2019, the singer took to Twitter to share that she nailed the song in 10 minutes with the help of X Ambassadors. Wow!

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10. Jennifer Lopez's "I'm Real (Remix) ft. Ja Rule" was written in 10-15 minutes.

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This gem will forever stay on my playlist! Ja rule has created so much magic in every song he's on, and "I'm Real" is no exception. The original version was written by Jennifer Lopez, Leshan David Lewis, Troy Oliver, and Cory Rooney with Ja Rule contributing additional lyrics to the remix.

In an interview with Complex back in 2013, the rapper shared how quickly he put his spin on things. "Irv Gotti made the track and I wrote the record in literally 10, 15 minutes. Done deal. It was special because...it was the fastest turnaround of a record I've ever been apart of."

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11. Kanye West wrote "All Falls Down" in 15 minutes.

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Whether you're a Kanye fan or not, you can't dispute the fact that he's a musical genius. In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, he discussed the impact of this 2004 smash hit, saying, "It wasn’t until I hung out with Dead Prez and understood how to make, you know, raps with a message sound cool that I was able to just write 'All Falls Down' in 15 minutes."

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12. Ray Charles wrote "What'd I Say" in under 15 minutes while improvising at a live show.

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I'm not super familiar with Ray Charles, so I was pretty gobsmacked when I found out how this song came about. After the singer ran out of songs to perform during a four-hour gig, he started to improvise and told the band to follow him, thusly, "What I'd Say" was born.

"I had sung everything I could think of. So I said to the guys, 'Look, I'm going to start this thing off, I don't know where I'm going, so y'all just follow me.' And I said to the girls, 'Whatever I say, just repeat after me.'" the singer remembered.

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13. Nicki Minaj wrote her "FEFE" verse in 15 minutes.

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If you're a Barb, you'll know that Nicki prides herself on writing her own bars. In 2018, she took to Instagram to share how her collaboration with 6ix9ine came about through a simple voice note exchange. Nicki revealed that she wrote the first half of her initial verse in five minutes, commenting that "6ix9ine sent me this song & we got on the phone to discuss. 5 mins after the call I sent him this voice note. True story. He sent me a voice note back making fun of my voice. I was literally in bed half sleep! Smh."

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14. Little Mix wrote their song "Grown" in 15 minutes.

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Little Mix's growth from X-Factor contestants to becoming the UK's leading girl band was inspirational to witness, but that doesn't mean their journey was smooth sailing. During an interview with Sugarscape, Jesy Nelson explained that at one point, the group went through a tough time with their album and nearly broke up. Thankfully, they didn't, but they did decide to write a song about it.

"We literally spent all day moaning then we wrote this song in, I'd say, 15 minutes. If that." Ultimately, in 2020, Jesy Nelson would go on to leave the band, and the remaining members would continue making music, until this year when they announced a hiatus.

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15. Sia wrote "Chandelier" in 15 minutes.

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Back in 2014, Sia blessed us with "Chandelier," and the song stays in my head rent-free. ... I'm still in awe of the music video! During an interview with NPR, the singer explained how it only took her a matter of minutes to write the lyrics. "'Chandelier' took, like, four minutes to write the chords, then, like, 12-15 minutes to write the lyrics. Probably 10 or 15 minutes to cut the vocals."

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16. Gwen Stefani wrote "Make Me Like You" for her now husband in less than 15 minutes.

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Gwen changed the pop game, and had everyone experimenting with their quirky side, but "Make Me Like You" had a different feel from her other songs. Her husband Blake Shelton inspired her to write it, and she opened up about how it came about on Good Morning America.

"It just came out. It was like, I had been feeling that way. It's just exactly what I felt that day. ... And everybody in the room was just kind of like, 'Whoa, this is happening right now.' It was written fast. Like, 10, 15 minutes."

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17. Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" was written in 15 minutes.

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Mariah Carey wouldn't be the queen of Christmas if it wasn't for this classic hit. She wrote the popular number with veteran songwriter Walter Afanasieff, who says the song's success is due to how quickly they wrote the song. In an interview with Billboard, he described the songwriting process. "We would write the nucleus of the song, the melody, primary music, and then some of the words were there as we finished writing it. That one went very quickly: It was an easier song to write than some of the other ones."

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18. Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" was written in 20 minutes.

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If you don't know The-Dream, then you're missing out because he's a gift to the music industry. He's written and produced hit songs for numerous artists, one of them being Beyoncé. In an interview with Genius, The-Dream spoke about writing this single girl anthem in just 17 minutes. "Usually, those songs that take the small amount of time are usually the bigger ones because you're not thinking about it. It's just a mood."

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19. Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" was written in 25 mins.

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Taylor Swift is undeniably the queen of breakup songs, and the inspiration for this song came unexpectedly when she was in the studio recording other songs. After a guy walked into the studio and told Swift that he heard she was getting back together with her ex-boyfriend, she responded with the now-famous lyric, and the rest was history. "I just grabbed the guitar, and it just happened very randomly. It was hilarious — we wrote the song in 25 minutes," she said speaking with Digital Spy.

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20. Lorde's breakthrough hit "Royals" was written in 30 minutes.

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One of Lorde's career-defining moments was the success of smash hit "Royals" — it seemed to follow me everywhere I went! In an interview, the singer told Billboard that she was able to write the song very quickly.

"Yeah, I was just at my house, and I wrote it before I went to the studio," the singer said. "I wrote it in, like, half an hour — the lyrics, anyway. I wrote all the lyrics and took them to the studio, and my producer [Joel Little] was like, 'Yeah, this is cool.' We worked on that and on two other songs on the EP in a week, and just did a little bit every day."

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21. Charli XCX and Iggy Azalea wrote "Fancy" in 30 mins.

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I'm sure we can all agree that this song is a masterpiece, especially when paired with the Clueless inspired video. In an interview with People magazine, Charli shared that the hit track wasn't hard to write at all. "We wrote it in, like, half an hour. Iggy had, like, done her rap, so I just came in the studio and put the chorus down so that was it, it was a really quick process."

Def Jam / Virgin / EMI

22. Spice Girls wrote "Wannabe" in 30 minutes.

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Who wasn't obsessed with the Spice Girls? They influenced a whole generation with their individual styles, iconic nicknames, and unlimited bops. Their song "Wannabe" was one of my favourites, and co-writer and producer Richard ‘Biff’ Stannard recalled four of the girls (minus Victoria) helping to write the song in 30 minutes.

"There were seven of us sitting on the floor in this tiny room. Everyone had their role; Geri was always concentrating on the theme, and all the others would chip in with melodies and lyrics. … There would be two or three things going on at once; we would have three or four mics up, and we would record everything, then pick the bits we liked and play it back to them."

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23. Jess Glynne wrote "Home" in 30 minutes.

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You'll probably recognise Jess's voice from a mile away, as she's been featured on several iconic tracks such as "Rather Be" and "My Love." Her debut solo single "Home" made everyone stop in their tracks, and in an exclusive interview with Manny Norte, the singer shared how she wrote the song in half an hour. "It was the first session we all had. It started off as something else. ... We got carried away with the beat, and it was written in, like, half an hour."

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Did any of these surprise you? What's your favourite song off this list? Let us know in the comments!

Additional thumbnail credits: JMEnternational, Koichi Kamoshida, Rex, via Getty Images.

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