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Jolene
Dolly pleading with her rival rather than fighting her, written the same day as "I Will Always Love You."
Love Will Tear Us Apart
The title flips Captain and Tennille into its opposite, and the single arrived a month after Curtis's death.
I Walk the Line
Cash slipped paper under his guitar strings for that snare tick, and hums to find each new key.
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
Beyonce found Bob Fosse's Mexican Breakfast on YouTube; three Grammys and a decade of wedding receptions followed.
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Two accordions, a key change eight beats in, and 21 takes at Gold Star before Wilson sang about growing up.
Family Affair (Sly and the Family Stone)
A rhythm box edited into a heartbeat, Billy Preston on Pianet, and three weeks at number one.
International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)
A Willie Hutch loop left alone at the top, and Andre 3000's verse reportedly returned with the drums stripped off.
Stand By Your Man
Written in about twenty minutes at the end of a session, and Wynette immediately dreaded that high note forever.
Then He Kissed Me
Larry Levine stumbled onto that echo by accident, and LaLa Brooks sings a whole courtship in under three minutes.
You Never Can Tell
Written in federal prison, cut at Chess in January 1964, and the happiest wedding song rock and roll made.
Jackson
Wheeler got the idea from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Cash and Carter trade the taunts like they mean them.
White Wedding
Steve Stevens' guitar cutting through Keith Forsey's production, and Idol sneering his way through somebody else's wedding.
Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)
Lynn and her sister Peggy Sue wrote it, and the album became country music's first gold record by a woman.
Everything She Wants
Michael programmed the LinnDrum in an evening, wrote the vocal next morning, and turned marital dread into a groove.
Daydream Believer
John Stewart wrote it after a day of pure daydreaming; Tork's piano and Jones's lead did the rest.
Chapel of Love
Red Bird's first single, written by Barry, Greenwich and Spector, and it knocked the Beatles off number one.
We've Only Just Begun
Richard Carpenter recognized Paul Williams singing a bank commercial and asked whether a whole song existed underneath.
Archie, Marry Me
Snowed into a Prince Edward Island farmhouse, Rankin wrote a proposal song; VanGaalen cut it in Calgary.
I Write Sins Not Tragedies
Pizzicato cello, a title lifted from Douglas Coupland, and a circus wedding video that won Video of the Year.