“Take A Walk” by Passion Pit

"Take a Walk" opened the campaign for Passion Pit's second album, Gossamer, in 2012, and it's a stomping, glittering electro-pop march with a heavy heart. Michael Angelakos wrote it and produced it with drummer Chris Zane, with Alex Aldi engineering, and Angelakos sings in that high, strained voice of his over big, bright synths and a beat that plods like a man walking home with bad news.

The story is a businessman sinking under money troubles, and Angelakos built each verse around one of the men in his own family who emigrated to America, catching each at a different point in his life there. Rolling Stone named it the third-best song of 2012. A Taco Bell commercial later used it, which split the band's fans; Angelakos shrugged it off as airtime too good to turn down.

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