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Song Stories

“Need You Tonight”

INXS | 1987

Singer Michael Hutchence wrote the lyrics for what would be the Aussie band's lone U.S. chart-topper in a Hong Kong hotel room the night before the arrival of keyboard player/songwriting partner Andrew Farriss, who came up with some music in the cab on the way to the airport. When they hooked up, Farriss played a tape of what he'd just composed for Hutchence, who pulled out his lyrics and started singing along. "It stopped at the end, and it was exactly how you hear it on the record," Hutchence noted. They were both stunned at this improbably perfect match, as Hutchence sang "I'm lonely" over Farriss' final note.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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