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Song Stories

“Bang Bang Bang”

Mark Ronson and the Business Intl feat. Q-Tip and MNDR | 2010

This song includes both MDNR lead singer Amanda Warner and rapper Q-Tip on the track, but the latter guest appearsance wouldn’t have happened without a providential accident in the studio. "Q-Tip came to the studio to record a rap and I accidentally played the first few bars of 'Bang Bang Bang' while trying to find something else,” Ronson recalled. “He said, 'What was that, those chords man, those are ill -- let me do something on that.'" Q-Tip added his part, and the song landed in the Top 10.

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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."

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