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Song Stories

“Seven and Seven Is”

Love | 1966

Driven by ominous fuzz chord riffs and nonstop drum rolls, Arthur Lee's surrealistic rant "Seven and Seven Is" was capped off by an atomic explosion, a brief country blues tag ending the song like dust settling over a demolished building. More than 30 takes were recorded, mainly because the song's drum part was so exhausting that Lee and Love drummer Snoopy Pfisterer had to take turns playing it. "It was about a lady named Anita," disclosed Lee. "She's born on the seventh, and I'm born on the seventh, and that's 'seven and seven is.'"

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Song Stories

“Karma Chameleon”

Culture Club | 1983

Boy George has said this song was about standing by what you believe in. However, at the time, he was involved in a secret affair with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. "Now people can understand the songs better," he said. "They were written about my relationship with Jon, and they were also written about being a gay man in a homophobic world." The lines "If I listen to your lies, would you say/I'm a man without conviction/I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction," described his life at the time, he said. "I was selling this big lie."

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