Over seven minutes of tensely coiled Southern rock, Patterson Hood plays an ex-cop whose "temper and the shakes" cost him his badge, his family and his mind. Maybe he'll shoot up a Cracker Barrel. Either way, his too-human desolation is why Hood thinks he deserves a song this powerful.

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“He Will Break Your Heart”

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."