36 Popular Songs That Artists Regret Creating (3 of 7)

Do What U Want (feat. R. Kelly) – Lady Gaga

To astute Lady Gaga fans, there is another version of this song where it’s part of a duet with Christina Aguilera. However, the original version of this song that appeared on ARTPOP was with R. Kelly. That song was eventually removed once allegations arose and directed towards R. Kelly’s conduct.

We can’t blame Lady Gaga for that though, especially considering what she has been going through. She wrote a letter giving her reasoning before removing the song from streaming platforms.

“I made both the song and video at a dark time in my life, my intention was to create something extremely defiant and provocative because I was angry and still hadn’t processed the trauma that had occurred in my own life.”

Picture To Burn – Taylor Swift

Any Taylor Swift fan knows that a lot of her music is directed towards specific people in her life in some way, shape or form. Naturally, it can lead to some very expressive lyrics and can also lead to regrets later down the line.

In the case of this song, Swift had particular issues with the following line: “So go and tell all your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy / That’s fine, I’ll tell mine / You’re gay, by the way.”

“I had this song called ‘Picture to Burn,’ that’s talking about how ‘I hate your truck,’ and ‘I hate that you ignored me,’ ‘I hate you.’ Now, the way that I would say that and the way that I would feel that kind of pain is a lot different.”

That controversial lyric has now been scrubbed from official music videos and streams.

Ultraviolence – Lana Del Rey

While the song is still popular to this day amongst her fans, there is one particular line in this song she doesn’t sing anymore: “he hit me and it felt like a kiss”. These days, there are definitely some regrets revolving around that line.

“I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing ‘Ultraviolence’ but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end.”

Gold Digger – Kanye West

This particular song was a huge hit for Kanye, however he revealed in a 2013 interview with Zane Lowe that he did this song specifically because he knew he’d be getting paid for releasing that song in the first place.

He never really liked the song, but it got him money to create an immersive live experience for his fans.

Telephone with Beyoncé – Lady Gaga

While this is another massive smash for Lady Gaga, it wasn’t a song she has fostered loving feelings towards. As she revealed in an interview a year later:

“I hate ‘Telephone’. Is that terrible to say? It’s the song I have the most difficult time listening to. Ulti­mately the mix and the process of getting the pro­duc­tion finished was very stressful for me. So when I say it’s my worst song it has nothing to do with the song, just my emotional con­nec­tion to it.”

She further clarified that she’d skip over her The Fame song “Money Honey” in that same interview too.