Eric Clapton wrote "Layla" about his love for Pattie Harrison, who was married to George Harrison at the time. He eventually married Pattie, and managed to stay friends with George.
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.
The "Ms. Jackson" in the OutKast song is Erykah Badu's mother. Andre 3000 had a child with Badu, and felt she was portraying him as a lousy dad.
"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.
"Everywhere" wasn't a huge hit for Fleetwood Mac, but it's one of their most popular songs in the streaming era. It was written and sung by Christine McVie, who wrote these kind of catchy tunes in contrast to mystical Stevie Nicks songs like "Rhiannon" and "Gold Dust Woman."
The R.E.M. song "Don't Go Back To Rockville" is about Mike Mills' girlfriend at the University of Georgia, who had to go back to Rockville, Maryland, for the summer.
After studying in Paris with a famous composition teacher, Charles became the most successful writer of TV theme songs.
The longtime bassist of Earth, Wind & Fire discusses how his band came to do a holiday album, and offers insight into some of the greatest dance/soul tunes of all-time.
Billie Jean, Delilah, Sara, Laura and Sharona - do you know who the girls in the songs really are?
With a few clues (Works at a diner, dreams of running away), can you name the character in the song?
Was "Pearl" Eddie Vedder's grandmother, and did she really make a hallucinogenic jam? Did Journey have a contest to name the group? And what does KISS stand for anyway?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have some rather unusual song titles - see if you can spot the real ones.