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Song Stories

“Wild Horses”

The Rolling Stones | 1971

This slow-dance country ballad off Sticky Fingers is about co-songwriter Keith Richards really not wanting to leave his two-month-old son behind to go on tour: hence the chorus "Wild horses couldn't drag me away." Richards said he came up with the equine phrase, and Mick Jagger elaborated upon it. "Let me put it this way: I'd say, 'Mick, it goes like this: Wild horses couldn't drag me away.' Then it would be a division of labor, Mick filling in the verses," Richards told Rolling Stone.

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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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