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It's Too Late
Toni Stern wrote the words in a day after her romance with James Taylor ended, and Curtis Amy's sax answers.
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
O'Rourke mixed this one song as an audition, won the whole album, and Wilco made it the opening track.
Somebody That I Used to Know
Recorded at his parents' house on the Mornington Peninsula around a Luiz Bonfá sample, eight weeks at number one.
Bloodbuzz Ohio
Cut in Aaron Dessner's Brooklyn garage, a horn part stripped out late, leaving that rolling drum pattern and Berninger's baritone.
I Ain't Mad At Cha
Released two days after Shakur's death, Daz Dillinger's loop of DeBarge's A Dream carrying a farewell to lost friends.
Mykonos
Pecknold rebuilt a piano soul demo with Phil Ek at Bear Creek, and the harmonies own the second half.
Hard to Explain
Four feet of air between hi-hat and snare mic, and a drum machine sketch reborn as live New York rock.
Hannah Hunt
Koenig named it for a Columbia classmate from his Buddhism class, and the final minute cracks wide open.
Band of Gold
Holland-Dozier-Holland hid behind the pseudonym Edythe Wayne, Dennis Coffey added electric sitar, and Britain gave it six weeks on top.
The Mother We Share
Cut in the trio's Glasgow basement studio, sibling estrangement wrapped in synth glitter and Mayberry's bright clean vocal.
Out of Touch
A chorus Oates stumbled into on a synthesizer he could barely operate, and the duo's sixth and last number one.
Cold, Cold Heart
Mitch Miller took a Hank Williams country ballad, wrapped it in Percy Faith's strings, and country crossed over.
One (Johnny Cash)
Rick Rubin's arrangement leaves it bare, and Cash, his voice thinned by illness, turns U2's Berlin song into a reckoning.
Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
Two chords written in a northeast Portland duplex, and Nate Query put the whole album on his credit card.
How's It Gonna Be
Fifty-two weeks on the Hot 100 for a breakup song that began with Cadogan picking up an autoharp.
Everybody's Changing
Rice-Oxley wrote it after the guitarist quit, which is why a rock band's biggest hook is played on piano.
Other People
Cut to 24-track analog tape at Sonic Ranch in Texas, gauzy organ, Legrand singing a relationship dissolving.
Name
Rzeznik twisted tuning pegs until a second high E replaced the B string, and that open ring carries the song.
Holding Back the Years
Hucknall wrote the words at seventeen, his punk band cut it first, and the chorus made it an American number one.
Water Runs Dry
Four voices, one Babyface song about a relationship drying up, and another number two for the Philadelphia group.
It's Been Awhile
Written in 1996 for an acoustic side project and shelved, it returned to spend twenty weeks atop Mainstream Rock.
Picture
Crow's label blocked the radio rights, so Allison Moorer re-cut the female vocal; it still became Kid Rock's biggest hit.
Over My Head (Cable Car)
A fight with his brother Caleb, a Denver station spinning the demo, and Slade's chorus everywhere by 2006.