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Song Stories

“Danger! High Voltage”

Electric Six | 2003

Detroit’s Electric Six scored their first big hit with the humorous single "Danger! High Voltage," a mix of funk, disco and garage rock featuring dueling vocals from Dick Valentine and Jack White, who appears as an unbilled guest. "Fire in the disco, fire in the Taco Bell!" snarls Valentine over a barrage of electric guitars, but the track didn’t always have these lines. "[It] started out as a ditty without lyrics we would do when someone broke a string," said the band’s former drummer, M. "Dick finally wrote lyrics to it and we recorded it on a whim."

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

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