“Carry On” by fun.

"Carry On" became the third single from fun.'s second album, Some Nights, on October 23, 2012, and it's the record's great pep talk, a song about getting through hard times dressed up as a full-blown rock anthem. Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff wrote it with Jeff Bhasker, who produced, arranged and mixed it, and he stacked the room: French horns, trombones, violins, violas, cellos, double bass and flute.

It starts small, with Ruess barely above a whisper, staring down a possible suicide, before a huge chorus and Antonoff's guitar come crashing in behind him. The narrator ends up in a bar with friends, all of them thinking about the mortality of the people they love, and past the two-and-a-half-minute mark Antonoff rips off a short, Slash-style wailing solo. The band played it on Saturday Night Live that November, with Louis C.K. hosting, and again at the 2013 Grammy Awards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.