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Song Stories

“City of New Orleans”

Arlo Guthrie | 1972

Around 1971, believing he had less than a year to live, Steve Goodman approached Arlo Guthrie at a bar and asked if he could play this song for him. Battling leukemia, Goodman hoped Guthrie would record the tune — inspired by a trip from Chicago to New Orleans on that eponymous train — so his wife would have money after he died. Goodman lived to see Guthrie's version become a hit, not passing away till 1984. "God bless Arlo Guthrie," Rolling Stone reported him saying before performing this song himself. "He pays my rent."

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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