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Song Stories

“That'll Be the Day”

Buddy Holly and the Crickets | 1957

Buddy Holly and drummer Jerry Allison started playing together as teenagers in a Lubbock, Texas, garage. "We weren’t interested in ball games or hot rods--we were interested in playing [music]," Allison recalled. "We thought if you could get a record out, you’d have a hit, you could buy a Cadillac." Their dream came true with this tough-talking twangfest, which Holly and Allison co-wrote after seeing the John Wayne western The Searchers, during which the Duke repeatedly uttered the title phrase. The song became the first of a string of hits that was tragically cut off when Holly died in a plane crash at age 22.

Watch elite rockers speak about Buddy Holly, behind the scenes of a tribute album.
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“(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”
Bryan Adams | 1991
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“Oh Boy”
Cam'ron feat. Juelz Santana | 2002

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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