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Song Stories

“Just Like Heaven”

The Cure | 1987

Although the track was the Cure’s 11th Top 40 hit in their native United Kingdom, it was the alt-rock band’s first in the United States, reaching just Number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The whimsical lyrics and lilting melody were inspired by a seaside trip singer Robert Smith took with his then-future wife, recollecting a dreamy romantic rendezvous. Smith once admitted to Rolling Stone that “when I find someone I like, I try to hold on to them” — a truism underscored by the fact he’s been with the sweetheart he’s singing about since he was 15.

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“L.E.S. Artistes”
Santigold | 2008
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“Last Nite”
The Strokes | 2001

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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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