I Thought It Was Clever: One Of The Songwriters Behind Rihanna’s ‘SOS’ Reveals That The Song Has These Hidden ’80s Song Titles In The Lyrics

We all love a hit song. Even more than that, we love to hear the backstory of said song. One person who can attest to making hit records is Barbadian singer Rihanna. The 36 year-old has amassed 14 number-one songs (and 32 top-ten songs) on the Billboard Hot 100. Continue reading to hear a secret behind Rihanna’s first number one.

On April 10th, 2006 Rihanna released her second studio album A Girl Like Me. It debuted at number five on the Billboard Hot 200, selling 115,000 copies in its first week. These numbers nearly doubled those of her debut album Music of the Sun. A major part of the success of the album stemmed from the album’s lead single “SOS” becoming a chart-topper. The infectious track was written by J. R. Rotem and Evan “Kidd” Bogart, with additional credit assigned to Ed Cobb (for inspiration built around a sample of Soft Cell’s 1981 recording of “Tainted Love”. This song was written by Cobb in 1965, later influencing the creation of “SOS”.)

Bogart, who also has written for Beyoncé, Brandy, Britney Spears and many more was recently on the Behind The Wall podcast with Daniel Wall and gave some fascinating insight on the song. After admitting that he had no idea what he was doing while writing the song, Bogart shared the craziest fact. He told Wall that the whole second verse of the song is comprised of ’80s song titles strung together as sentences.

As the talented writer recited the song’s lyrics, he specified that the song titles used weren’t just from random ’80s songs. Instead, he used songs that had already accomplished what “SOS” would eventually go on to. That’s right, all of the song titles he used where from number one songs from that decade. Why did Bogart do it? The 46 year-old simply thought it was clever. Fortunately for him (and Rihanna) it worked out perfectly, maybe even better than expected. “SOS” not only topped the charts, it reigned supreme at number one for three consecutive weeks. It spent a total of 28 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. To no one’s surprise, the song was also certified triple platinum.

With Bogart sharing the backstory of the timeless hit, we thought it would be cool to make a playlist of all of the songs that helped make Rihanna’s first number one single such a massive hit. Check it out below!