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Song Stories

“Bang the Drum All Day”

Todd Rundgren | 1982

This ode to carefree skin pounding was initially only a minor hit. But it later became a rock staple when radio stations across the country began playing its popular refrain -- "I don't want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day" -- on Friday afternoons to get listeners hyped about the weekend. "It's always good to be somewhere in the public consciousness," Rundgren said of the song's second wind. "You've done something that very few people have accomplished, which is to find a place in the culture, more or less, that transcended anything that you originally tried to accomplish."

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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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