"Walking on a Thin Line" by Huey Lewis and the News is about an American soldier who is trained as a sniper in the Vietnam War. It was written for a documentary on the war.
"Panama" by Van Halen is not about the country or the canal, but about a stripper David Lee Roth met in Arizona.
The most famous song to prominently feature a French horn is "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys.
David Bowie's "Heroes" is about his producer Tony Visconti and his girlfriend, but Bowie didn't admit this until the '00s, since Visconti was married at the time.
"Criminal" is Fiona Apple's only chart hit. Royalties from it allow her to make music on her terms, releasing albums several years apart.
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."
The man who ran Nirvana's first label gets beyond the sensationalism (drugs, Courtney) to discuss their musical and cultural triumphs in the years before Nevermind.
If you can recall the days when MTV played videos, you know that there are lots of stories to tell. See if you can spot the real ones.
Did this Eagle come up with the term "Parrothead"? And what is it like playing "Hotel California" for the gazillionth time?
How well do you know this shock-rock harbinger who's been publicly executed hundreds of times?
He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."
How a gym teacher, a janitor, and a junkie became part of some very famous band names.