I Try

This song has a very sweet melody, which makes the lyrics about getting choked up over someone and wanting him in your life sound like it could be a love song, but it's really a heartbreaker with a very personal story behind it. Macy Gray was signed to Atlantic Records in the mid-'90s as part of a rock band, but the album they made never got released. With her music career kaput, Gray became a secretary and married her boyfriend, a mortgage broker named Tracy Hinds. They had three children together but split up just as Gray got a solo deal with Epic Records. Many of the songs Gray wrote for her first album were about Hinds, including "I Try," where she explains that she wants to be strong and leave his memory behind, but can't bring herself to do so: Though I try to hide it, it's clear My world crumbles when you are not near

"I Try" had widespread appeal, getting airplay on pop, R&B and adult contemporary radio, and also doing well on MTV. It was not typical of her sound though - as many of the 7 million people who bought the On How Life Is album found out, Gray did a lot of funky soul with gritty lyrics as heard on tracks like "Caligula" and "Sex-o-matic Venus Freak." Her European audience was more accepting (Gray had six other UK Top 40 hits), but in America she became a one-hit wonder - her only other Hot 100 appearance was as a featured voice on the Black Eyed Peas collaboration "Request Line."

Gray fought with her record company, imploring them not to release this song as a single. "I really didn't understand what was so special about it at the time," she said in her Songfacts interview. It was all very strange to me. I was shocked when that song hit. And I'm still shocked every night when I sing it and everybody still knows the words."