The Roots Hook Up Party Jams, Led Zep Cover at All Points West

The Roots worked extra hard on Saturday at All Points West, turning the moody, apocalyptic songs off their last two albums into monster party jams — "Long Time" was fast and loose, "Criminal" was a funk beast. Catering to the jam-friendly audience, their "You Got Me" was a sprawling epic, complete with a Rogers and Hammerstein interpolation, a one-handed Eddie Hazel-style guitar solo and a brief cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" that made everyone go apeshit ... or at least everyone who didn't leave in the mass exodus during the bass solo, all attempting to get good spots for Radiohead, naturally.

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

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