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Song Stories

“Take the Skinheads Bowling”

Camper Van Beethoven | 1985

Even for a band known for quirky indie rock, Camper Van Beethoven's determination to "Take the Skinheads Bowling" made for an offbeat song, the band jovially inserting lyrics about forgetting dreams and the failure of any of the song's lines to rhyme. It reached a new audience in 2002 when Teenage Fanclub's version was used on the soundtrack of Bowling for Columbine. "It's about nothing, really," CVB's David Lowery said. "But it's one of those songs that the more you repeat the mantra the more you understand it."

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“U Can't Touch This”
MC Hammer | 1990
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“Suzie Q”
Dale Hawkins | 1957

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

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