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Song Stories

“Dear Mr. Fantasy”

Traffic | 1967

Steve Winwood had already had hits with the Spencer Davis Group and with Traffic's first album, but this title track from the group's follow-up is a career highlight, even though it wasn't even released as a single. The idea for the song first came about about when drummer Jim Capaldi was sketching out ideas for an album cover for the first album that had a Stature of Liberty-like figure and a short poem he composed, but he lost interest. The band found the poem and took over from there. "Jim flaked out and Chris [Wood] and I stayed up all night and we got the thing together," Steve Winwood said.

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Song Stories

“Helen Wheels”

Paul McCartney | 1973

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"

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