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Inside the Rock Hall's Woodstock 40th Anniversary Exhibit

July 2, 2009 7:16 PM ET

As the August anniversary of Woodstock approaches, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland is taking a look back at rock's historic fest in a new exhibit that opens tomorrow called "Woodstock: The 40th Anniversary." Go behind the scenes with curator Howard Kramer as he outlines some of its highlights — like the vest fest co-producer Michael Lang wore all three days of peace, love and rock & roll as well as the documents listing who was playing and how much they were paid. The exhibit, which runs through late November, also includes a press release from when the fest was scheduled to go down at Wallkill, New York ("Woodstock does not figure on gate crashers") and Lang's original handwritten plans for the event.

Plus, go inside the new book The Road to Woodstock in exclusive excerpts here:

"The Road to Woodstock": The Stories Behind Rock History

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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