The Doobie Brothers' swampy #1 hit "Black Water" is about the Mississippi River, evoking the rafting adventures Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn.
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.
Wang Chung's '80s classic "Dance Hall Days" is about how things can start simple but end up complex. First you "take your baby by the hand," but by the end she has an amethyst in her mouth.
The title of the Metallica song "Ride The Lightning" came from a line in the Stephen King book The Stand where a guy is about to be executed.
Sting wrote "Fields of Gold" after buying a house near a barley field and enjoying the majestic sunsets.
Jonah Hill directed the video for Sara Bareilles' song "Gonna Get Over You." It's a mash-up of Grease and West Side Story.
The lead singer/lyricist of The Beach Boys talks about coming up with the words for "Good Vibrations," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "Kokomo" and other classic songs.
Harry is Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap, Mark Shubb in The Folksmen, and Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
Roger tells the stories behind some of his biggest hits, including "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song."
With the rise of Kindie rock, more musicians are embracing their inner child with tunes for tots - here, we look at pop stars who recorded kids' albums.
Mike is lead guitarist with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and co-writer of classic songs like "Boys Of Summer," "Refugee" and "The Heart Of The Matter."
She thinks of herself as a "song interpreter," but back in the '80s another country star convinced Emmylou to take a crack at songwriting.