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You Only Live Once (song)

2006 single by The Strokes

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ767792 ↗
Source-derived summary

"You Only Live Once" is song by American rock band the Strokes. It is the opening track on their third studio album, First Impressions of Earth. The song was written by Julian Casablancas with production from David Kahne and Gordon Raphael. It was released as the third and final single from the album in 2006 by RCA and Rough Trade Records. They have performed this song on several programs, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

A cover of Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me" was recorded as a B-side and features Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sharing vocals with Casablancas, while Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and Eagles of Death Metal) plays drums alongside Fabrizio Moretti.

When the song was released as a single, the Strokes launched Operation You Only Live Once prompting all of their fans to call and request the single on radio stations. Their goal was to try to get out the word of the new single as fast as possible, by spreading the song by word of mouth. The Strokes' Myspace page asked all users to put the song in their profile in an attempt to spread the single among the online community.

"I'll Try Anything Once"

An alternate version of the song, entitled "I'll Try Anything Once", is included as one of the B-sides on the "Heart in a Cage" single.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “You Only Live Once (song)” is 2006 single by The Strokes. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Only, Live and Once, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006-09-26. For this dossier, Only, Live and Once is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2006 single by The Strokes” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q767792. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow You Only Live Once (song) primary sources, You Only Live Once (song) archive and Only research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “You Only Live Once (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.