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Song Stories

“Clouds”

Hole | 1991

Courtney Love said she wrote this raucous take on Joni Mitchell's melancholy "Both Sides Now" as a diss to her mother. "We used to be forced to sing that in the f---ing Volvo in unison," Love told Rolling Stone. "I felt so humiliated by it." Love, who as a five-year-old is pictured on the back of a Grateful Dead album cover, said the hippie ideals that didn't materialize turned the next generation into drug addicts, which is why Hole's take on "Both Sides Now" features references to drug abuse and self-hatred.

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“Happy”
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles | 1975
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“Piss Factory”
Patti Smith | 1974

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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