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Song Stories

“Zero”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs | 2009

The trio didn't make music for those who wanted to stand there with their arms crossed – they wanted to instigate responses. "You wanted to just smack them, you know? Break a beer bottle over their head, to wake 'em up and make them feel something, and that's still what we want to do now," frontwoman Karen O. said about handling indifferent fans. "We want to shake the unshakable, to stir things up, and that's a lot of the spirit of "Zero"; it's like 'Come on man! Come on! Just feel something, escape, whatever, whatever the emotion is just feel it!'"

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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