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Song Stories

“Walk This Way”

Run-D.M.C. | 1986

In the early-to-mid-1980s, the line was firmly drawn between rock and hip-hop. But the wall came tumbling down once producer Rick Rubin persuaded Run-DMC to give Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" a rap makeover. "Run-DMC liked the beat, but they didn't want to sing those words," Rubin told Rolling Stone. "I explained that would defeat the purpose. There were still people who didn't think rap was music. The goal was, here's a song you've heard. And our version isn't so different that theirs is music and ours isn't."

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“Maggie May”
Rod Stewart | 1971
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“Lucky Now”
Ryan Adams | 2011

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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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