"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" was Michael Jaskson's attack on the tabloid press: "They eat off of you, you're a vegetable."
John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath got its title from a line in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic": "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."
The inspiration for Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" came from the songwriter worrying about his girlfriend, who was out at bars all day while he was at home penning songs.
The original, 1930s version of "Puttin' On the Ritz" has lyrics about Lenox Avenue in Harlem, not Park Avenue.
Hozier recorded his vocals for "Take Me To Church" in his attic at 3 a.m. one January morning in 2013
The thunderclap sound heard in the Bee Gees song "Tragedy" was made by Barry Gibb with his mouth.
U2, Carly Simon, Joanna Newsom, Brian Wilson and Fiona Apple have all gone to Van Dyke Parks to make their songs exceptional.
The 5-octave voice of the classical rock band Renaissance, Annie is big on creative expression. In this talk, she covers Roy Wood, the history of the band, and where all the money went in the '70s.
A founding member of the band War, Harold gives a first-person account of one of the most important periods in music history.
It started with a bouncy MTV classic. Nirvana and MCR made them scary, then Gwen, Avril and Madonna put on the pom poms.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.
Webb talks about his classic songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "MacArthur Park."
