George Michael was 17 and on a bus to his job at the cinema when he came up with the idea for "Careless Whisper" and the lyrics, "Something in your eyes calls to mind a silver screen."
Mike Nesmith wrote Linda Ronstadt's first hit, "Different Drum," before he joined The Monkees. He played an intentionally bad version of it on the show.
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was supposed to be titled "In The Garden Of Eden," but someone in the studio wrote down the title phonetically, and it stuck.
Eminem sampled a song by Labi Siffre on "My Name Is." Siffre, a gay activist, made Em take out some gay humor in the lyric before allowing it.
"Closing Time" by Semisonic was written by the lead singer when his wife was pregnant. Some of the lyrics are about being born.
"Sloop John B" is a traditional West Indian folk song, and it was a huge hit for The Beach Boys in 1966. They tweaked the lyric, "This is the worst trip since I've been born" to "...I've ever been on" as a wink to acid culture.
Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.
Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai were two of Graham's co-writers for some '80s rock classics.
An original member of Depeche Mode, Vince went on to form Erasure and Yaz.
Dwarfs on stage with an oversize Stonehenge set? Dabbling in Satanism? Find out which Spinal Tap-moments were true for Black Sabbath.
