Rob Reiner named his 1986 movie "Stand By Me" after the song, since he thought The Body, a Stephen King story on which it was based, sounded like a horror movie.
"If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow is about the sour grapes some of her collaborators from her first album expressed to the media when they felt slighted.
The Nicolette Larson hit "Lotta Love" was written by Neil Young, who recorded a very different version of the song.
Irving Berlin wrote "How Dry I Am" in anticipation of Prohibition, envisioning a bleak future without alcohol.
ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson conceived "Dancing Queen" as a dance song with the working title "Boogaloo," drawing inspiration from the 1974 George McCrae disco hit "Rock Your Baby." Their manager Stig Anderson came up with the title "Dancing Queen."
On Missy Elliott's "Work It," the backward vocal is the previous line, "Put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it," in reverse. She stumbled on it when the engineer played it backward by mistake.
Have you got the smarts to know which of these graduation song stories are real?
David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.
With the band in danger of being dropped from their label, Alice Cooper drummer Neal Smith co-wrote the song that started their trek from horror show curiosity to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
It wasn't her biggest hit as a songwriter (that would be "Bette Davis Eyes"), but "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" had a family connection for Jackie.
On Glen's résumé: hit songwriter, Facebook dominator, and member of Styx.
Richie talks about the impact of "Amazed," and how his 4-year-old son inspired another Lonestar hit.