.

Song Stories

“Louisiana”

The Walkmen | 2006

The Walkmen have a theory about their writing "Louisiana," the lead track for their third full-length, A Hundred Miles Off: "When you listen to the album over and over again, you're not going to hate the first song," lead singer Hamilton Leithauser said. They designed "Louisisana" to be a horn-aplenty party song in the vein of the Kinks, but somewhere out there exists another version. "Then we did a dub reggae version that was a little weird," Leithauser said. "It was all King Tubby-d out. We never made it out of the studio with that one. I hope it resurfaces as a B side some day."

prev
Song Stories Main Next

blog comments powered by Disqus

Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

More Song Stories entries »