Dueling Jukeboxes

No Rain vs U Got It Bad

Wow gang, last week’s prompt Peace Somehow, by Avi Kaplan was a record breaker! The Jukebox has seen more submissions during a single week, but not that kind of activity. Boy let me tell ya, Chris B. Writes sure knows how to turn up the volume!

And just wait until y’all see what Jennifer Haddock and I have in store for you this week! It’s going to be a blast!

Week #32 Feature🏆

This week’s Feature Award goes to Kristina Ray for her essay titled, Find the Peace…Somehow. I just love the perspective she’s taken here 🙏 look inside yourself, and find the peace within.

“If you are looking for peace, go inside yourself. You might not find it right away. In fact, you might find your inner world is more chaotic than your outer world, but if you persist, if you meet yourself with compassion and allow your thoughts and feelings to emerge without judgment, you will eventually find that peace has been hidden within you this entire time.” -Kristina

Find the Peace...Somehow

Today, when the world demands your outrage or your fear, remember we are the architects of the collective experience. Return to the breath. Return to the center. The world finds peace when the people within it find peace.

Welcome to the 1st Edition of the SFTJ’s Dueling Jukeboxes!

Buckle up! We’re going to be doing things a little bit differently over the next couple weeks. Jennifer Haddock and I have pitted our song prompts against each other. The Dueling Jukeboxes newsletter will be open for submissions for two weeks. And the song writing prompt that ends up with the most submission wins.

The Dueling Jukebox Winner(Jennifer or myself), will then award the following week’s Feature Award to the submission of their choosing.

And, I’ve decided to change up our format a little. After this next round of Headliners, we will have a round of songs from a single decade of Billboard Hot 100 Hits.

So to sweeten the pot, I’mma let our Dueling Jukeboxes Winner choose which decade of Hits Stories from the Jukebox will visit first!

Okay so just to clarify:

• We’ve got two prompts to choose from. Writers are welcome to submit to both prompts. There’s no limit on submissions.

• Submissions will be open for both Dueling Jukeboxes prompts for 2 weeks. The deadline to submit is midnight on Monday April 6th.

• The winning prompt Headliner will assign the Feature Award to the submission of their choosing. And pick our next decade of prompt Hits!

Remember:

• Each Tuesday I’ll publish a newsletter with that week’s song prompt — along with a featured writer’s submission from the previous week.

• Anyone is then free to run with it! Just add the link to your story or prose in the comments of this newsletter.

• Subscribers to Stories from the Jukebox, also have a chance to be featured in the following week’s newsletter. And I’ll do my best to give feedback and restack each submission.

There’s always rules:

1. All forms of prose are welcome, just keep it under 1500 words.

2. Submissions must be published by midnight on Monday.

3. Submissions must include a tag/link to this week’s Song Prompt Newsletter embedded within the post.

   While anyone is welcome to add their post in the comments at any time — all rules must be followed for a post to be eligible to be featured or shared.

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And finally we get to the songs! First up, No Rain, by Blind Melon!

"No Rain" is a song by American rock band Blind Melon. It was released in 1993 as the second single from the band's debut album Blind Melon.

The song is well known for its accompanying music video, which features the "Bee Girl" character. The music video, directed by Samuel Bayer, received heavy airplay on MTV at the time of its release. It subsequently helped propel Blind Melon to multi-platinum status. (Wikipedia)

The song is the band's highest-charting song, reaching number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number one on both the Billboard Album Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks charts. It proved to be successful internationally, peaking at number one in Canada and number eight in Australia.

Although the song is credited to the whole band, bassist Brad Smith wrote most of "No Rain". He said: "The song is about not being able to get out of bed and find excuses to face the day when you have really, in a way, nothing."

At the time, Smith had been dating a depressed woman who slept through sunny days and complained when it did not rain. For a while, he told himself that he was writing the song from her perspective, and later realized that he was also writing it about himself.

Here’s Jennifer’s Headliner, No Rain!

No Rain

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The Dueling Jukeboxes Contender is, Usher, U Got It Bad!

"U Got It Bad" is a song by American singer Usher. It was released through Arista Records as the second official single from his third studio album 8701.

It was written by Usher, Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, and produced by Dupri, with Cox credited as co-producer. (Wikipedia)

Talking to Complex, Dupri stated that “U Got It Bad” was inspired by Usher’s previous single “Nice & Slow“, saying that he produced the song as he wanted to re-produce a track similar to the latter in terms of success, for Usher’s 8701 (2001).

The lyrics to the song were, according to Dupri, inspired by a true story after he and Usher had been in the studio trying to record some music for the album, but Usher was continually distracted by a girl he had brought into the studio. Following an argument, the girl left.

A while later, they started on talking on the phone, which prompted Dupri to kick Usher out of the studio telling him, “We’re going to do this (session) later on. You got it completely too bad right now. You got it bad.”

This ignited the inspiration for the song, and once Usher had left, Dupri started writing its lyrics, with the notion that it was going to be a big hit. Once Usher returned to the studio, Dupri shared the story of the song with him.

Here’s my Headliner, I’ve got it Bad!

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Here’s the deets one more time, simplified. Writers, submissions are open to both prompts until midnight on May the 6th, 2026. All prose is welcome, just keep it under 1500 words. Happy Writing!

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Oh and if you’re an email reader, just hit reply — I want to hear from you too!

Don’t like commitments, but still want to support my writing? You can make a one-time contribution here.

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