Watch Jack Johnson Rock Three Stripped-Down Tunes

This week Jack Johnson scored his third consecutive Number One album with To the Sea, an "existential chill-out record that feels substantial, at times even edgy, without feeling forced," as Will Hermes writes in his RS review of the disc. As Johnson told Rolling Stone , picking up an electric guitar wasn't too much of a stretch: "In high school, I played in a band that covered Minor Threat, the Descendents, a little bit of Bad Religion." The new LP also features Mellotrons, crickets and a gecko, who makes a cameo on "Anything But the Truth."

The 35-year-old surfer and songwriter recently returned to his beloved acoustic guitar to lay down a few tracks at New York's Sirius XM studios. Click above to watch his performance of To the Sea's "From the Clouds," and check out two older tunes — In Between Dreams' "Banana Pancakes," and Animal Liberation Orchestra's "Girl, I Wanna Lay You Down" from Fly Between Falls 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.

More Song Stories entries »

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