How the Song Came to Be
The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Dr. Hook ‘Cover of the Rolling Stone’: Backstory

A band records a song about its burning desire to make it to the cover of the leading music magazine. We’ve got the backstory. Do you know who wrote it?

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Mamas & the Papas’ ‘Creeque Alley’: Behind the Song

The lyrics are stocked with names and places, some of which may have been (and still are) unfamiliar to fans of the group. We break it down.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Kinks’ ‘Celluloid Heroes’: Everybody’s a Star…

“Everybody’s a dreamer, and everybody’s a star,” Ray Davies sang. But it was never quite that simple. Watch a stellar performance of this Kinks Klassik.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Dion’s Moving ‘Abraham, Martin and John’

Tension was in the air in 1968 and rock music reflected the turmoil. Then came a voice from the past, gently singing of non-violence and hope.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Ides of March and the Story of ‘Vehicle’

They took their band name from a Shakespeare classic, their biggest hit from a real-life incident, and they drove their way up the charts in the year 1970.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Carly Simon’s Breakthrough: ‘You’re So Vain’

Watch the singer-songwriter perform a previously unheard verse of her huge 1972 hit from a ‘Carly Simon No Secrets’ classic albums special

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

‘Brandy’ by Looking Glass (It’s a Fine Song)

For one week only, in the summer of 1972, it was the best-selling, most often played single in the United States of America.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Gentrys’ ‘Keep on Dancing’: Behind the ’60s Garage Classic

The Memphis septet took an obscure R&B tune and turned it into a top 5 rocker in 1965. The story behind the recording–and the band–is fascinating.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Joan Baez’s ‘Diamonds & Rust’—Reflections on an Old Friend Named Bob

Dylan asked her who her new song was about. She told him it was about her ex-husband. It wasn’t, of course. It was about Bob Dylan.

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The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

Friend & Lover’s ‘Reach Out of the Darkness’: So Groovy Now

The song begins with a lyric that could only have been written in the late ’60s: “I think it’s so groovy now that people are finally getting together.” And the record was attributed to artists whose name could only have

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