The Black Keys Get Spacey and Shakin' at Lollapalooza

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"I only came for the Black Keys," shouted a heavily bearded man to nobody in particular. He was not alone in his enthusiasm, as a large crowd gathered to see the pair of Ohioans shake and sweat with their special brand of garage blues. Singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach plucked out fuzzy jams in between heavy tracks from their latest album Attack & Release. Those songs — rooted heavily in melody and produced by Danger Mouse on record — sometimes got lost in the sludge, but luckily drummer Patrick Carney is an absolute machine, pounding out rugged rimshots that kept the people twitching. The Black Keys hit their stride on "Strange Times," which had an Iron Butterfly-level heaviness that the crowd treated as dance music. That one bearded guy was surely not disappointed.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »

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