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Song Stories

“Float On”

Modest Mouse | 2004

After the cosmic dread of Modest Mouse's 2000 full-length The Moon and Antarctica, their funk-fueled “Float On” sounded like summer vacation. With his solar system reveries behind him, Isaac Brock turned to a new metaphor for the optimistic track. “There is something genuinely freeing to me about the ocean,” the Modest Mouse frontman said. “There are no borders — it’s f---ing beautiful. I’m not going to get to do space travel, so what’s under the water is quite a bit more interesting to me.” Audiences soaked up the good vibes: “Float On” helped make Good News for People Who Love Bad News the band’s first platinum album.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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