Key Takeaways

• Recording Process: Many iconic rock songs were captured in a single take, showcasing the raw talent of the artists.
• Vocal Highlights: Often, it’s specific parts like vocals or solos that are recorded in one take rather than entire songs.
• Studio Atmosphere: The environment and mood during recording play a crucial role in achieving memorable performances.
• Unique Stories: Each song has its own fascinating backstory related to its recording process.

It’s not everyday that one is able to capture lightning in a bottle in the studio, but when it happens, the results are worth keeping.

In the below list, we’ve rounded up 15 Rock Songs Recorded in a Single Take. But we’d like to be clear: songs are very rarely made in one sitting. Unless a band is making a completely live album with the entire group miced at one time, instrument parts, including vocals, are typically separated out into different tracks to be layered and mixed together at a later point. The end product, of course, is one cohesive song.

So when we say “one take,” we don’t necessarily mean the full song — sometimes it’s the vocal that was nailed in one take, or maybe the guitar solo. In any case, it’s still awfully impressive, as you’ll hear below.

1. “The House of the Rising Sun,” The Animals
From: The Animals (1964)

“We were looking for a song that would grab people’s attention,” Animals singer Eric Burdon once told Rolling Stone. We’d say they succeeded at that with “The House of the Rising Sun,” recorded in one take during a May 1964 session. Producer Mickie Most later recalled the circumstances for the 2005 book 1000 UK Number One Hits: “Everything was in the right place, the planets were in the right place, the stars were in the right place and the wind was blowing in the right direction. It only took 15 minutes to make so I can’t take much credit for the production. It was just a case of capturing the atmosphere in the studio.”

2. "Twist and Shout," The Beatles
From: Please Please Me (1963)

It isn’t that the Beatles didn’t want to do more takes of “Twist and Shout,” it’s that John Lennon physically could not. Technically, two takes of this song were recorded in February of 1963, at the tail end of a marathon recording session, but the second one was so strained that it immediately became clear the first take was going to have to be the one. “The last song nearly killed me,” Lennon later recalled. “My voice wasn’t the same for a long time after; every time I swallowed it was like sandpaper. I was always bitterly ashamed of it because I could sing it better than that; but now it doesn’t bother me. You can hear that I’m just a frantic guy doing his best.”

3. “Sister Ray,” The Velvet Underground
From: White Light/White Heat (1968)

“Sister Ray” by the Velvet Underground is perhaps one of the last songs you’d expect to have been recorded in one take when you consider the fact that it’s an incredible 17 and a half minutes long. And yet, this is what happened. Then again, the band purposely approached the song in a loose, improvisational manner — to the point where engineer Gary Kellgren had enough. “I don’ft have to listen to this,” he reportedly told Lou Reed in the studio that day (via Mojo). “I’ll put it in ‘record,’ and then I’m leaving. When you’re done, come get me.”

4. “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” James Brown
From: 1965 Single

Today when you listen to James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” what you’re hearing is what the band thought was just a run through take. But it turned out so good it was decided that it would be the official release. It was, however, edited, with the tempo increased and the pitch raised by a half step.

5. “I Feel Love,” Donna Summer
From: I Remember Yesterday (1977)

We don’t know how else to explain this, but long story short, Donna Summer had to take care of something before she nailed the vocal to “I Feel Love.” She was, at that time in 1976, dating a guy called Peter Muhldorfer but had recently met another man, Bruce Sudano. Summer was literally in the middle of writing the lyrics to “I Feel Love” when she told her cowriter, Pete Bellotte, that she needed to call her astrologer to figure things out before she could continue. “She called the astrologer because she wanted to go through Bruce’s star sign and charts,” Bellotte recalled to Mixmag in 2017. “The astrologer had decided that she had to go with Bruce. She came down and said, ‘I’ve made my decision.'” When Summer got in the studio, she got the vocal down in one take.

6. "Losing My Religion," R.E.M.
From: Out of Time (1991)

Sometimes everything just works out swimmingly. R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” was both written and recorded swiftly, with Michael Stipe doing just one take of the vocal. “The music was written in five minutes,” guitarist Peter Buck said in the liner notes for the In Time compilation (via Songfacts). “The first time the band played it, it fell into place perfectly. Michael had the lyrics within the hour, and while playing the song for the third or fourth time, I found myself incredibly moved to hear the vocals in conjunction with the music. To me, ‘Losing My Religion’ feels like some kind archetype that was floating around in space that we managed to lasso. If only all songwriting was this easy.”

7. “Bodysnatchers,” Radiohead
From: In Rainbows (2007)

The word “atmosphere” rears its head again. In October 2006, Radiohead decamped to a condemned mansion in the English countryside to work on new music, staying there for three weeks. It was in that space that they recorded “Bodysnatchers.” Thom Yorke, who was sick at the time, sang it exactly one time. “The vocal is one take and we didn’t do anything to it afterwards,” he relayed to NME in 2007. “We tidied up my guitar because I was so out of it; my guitar playing was rubbish. My best vocals are always the ones that happen there and then.”

8. “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” Bonnie Raitt
From: Luck of the Draw (1991)

The inspiration behind Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” was according to cowriter Allen Shamblin, a news article that mentioned a homeless man who was picked up by his wife only to be taken to court to get a divorce. It was his quote — “you just can’t make a woman love you” — that set the songwriting in motion. “It’s absolutely the saddest song I’ve ever sung,” Raitt said in a 2002 radio interview explaining that she recorded her vocal in one take. “We’d try to do it again and I just said, ‘You know, this ain’t going to happen.’