The White Stripes, "Conquest" from Icky Thump (2007)

Sara: [Pause] It sounds a little like the White Stripes.

VH1: It is.

Tegan: They're amazing. I only have Icky Thump and their last few albums, but I like them a lot. We hung out with Meg White once. She came to one of our shows in Detroit, and afterwards, since they covered one of our songs, she wanted to play it for us. We were backstage and she was like, "I'm so nervous," and we were like, "You're nervous!?!" There was a bowling alley attached to the venue, so we went bowling after she played us the song. She killed us!

Ani Difranco, "Swan Dive" from Little Plastic Castle (1998)

T: Ani Difranco!

S: I can remember our mother driving us to the store to get this record. I know a lot of her fans didn't really like this record after it came out, but I love it. I think it's because it's a bit poppier -- I tend to like the poppier stuff. She has such a distinct style of guitar-playing -- she borrows from a lot of other guitar players but her playing is so unique. It only took us a few seconds to know who it was.

T: Was this the album she toured with a brass band?

S: No.

T: But I think she played a lot of the songs for this album with a brass band.

S: No.

T: Why do you keep saying no to me when I know I'm right!

TO GET SONGS BY TEGAN AND SARA AND LOTS OF OTHER ARTISTS, GO TO URGE.

Neil Young, "Old Man" from Harvest (1972)

S: Oh!

T: [Jokingly] Who is this?

S: It wasn't until we were older that we started listening to Neil Young. We grew up listening to a lot of Springsteen -- that's what our parents played. It's funny, it's like if you're a Springsteen fan you aren't a Neil Young fan. Springsteen was more blue collar -- I can remember our parents having parties and Bruce Springsteen playing.

T: And then when we signed with his label, we went home with a stack of records and just listened to them. While I was writing If It Was You I was listening to a lot of Neil Young and a lot of Cat Stevens. Which, going back and listening to it, you can't hear at all.

S: Neil puts you completely at ease. You don't geek out around him. Well, maybe a little. I remember when we did a tour with Neil Young and the Pretenders, we had watched the Woodstock documentary the night before. The next day we were at catering and we sat down with Neil and his manager and they were like, what'd you do last night?

T: And we were like, uh, watched the Woodstock documentary.

S: And then they started to tell us about Woodstock, like, from their mouths. While we're eating salmon. It was amazing.

Broken Social Scene, "Shampoo Suicide" from You Forgot It In People (2002)

S: Broken Social Scene. You're lucky I'm here!

T: Whatever. I've gotten all of them.

S: This record makes me really sad though. Really nostalgic. I listened to this record all the time when I first moved to Montreal. This is just such a talented collective of people. There are moments on this album that are just amazing. We've met a few of them a few times, like at weird South By Southwest things where people will introduce us. But we were never cool, and they were a little bit older than us, so I never really identified with that scene.

Avril Lavigne, "Girlfriend" from The Best Damn Thing (2007)

T: Avril Lavigne. I don't know -- I feel sort of bad for her.

S: But this song does make me want to kill myself. I wonder if she is how she seems. Like, we grew up and knew some pretty poor people, and I wonder if that really is who she is, like this scrappy, sassy girl who grew up in a poor town.

T: Or whether that came after the fact, like, that's a defense mechanism, which is worse. It's such a weird thing, to be selling millions of records, and then to have all these people criticizing you. It's got to be horrible. I couldn't imagine all those people depending on me. Like, even with the level of fame we've gotten to, which has taken ten years, I've been freaked out the whole way.