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Song Stories

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

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Song Stories

“Thirteen”

Big Star | 1972

Alex Chilton chose to write about the innocence of young love instead of pent-up frustration for this ballad, which he titled after the age of the protagonists. However, Chilton admitted he was not happy with how the song turned out. "I think the performance of it on the record is bad. Just the singing really is … it's the wrong sort of approach, but at that time I didn't really know how to make the voice sounds in the studio that I wanted to do; it was a year or two later when I figured that out." When Chilton was at the age of 13, he experienced a life-changing occurrence -- the Beatles' landmark appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

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