"Return To Innocence" by Enigma is based on a Taiwanese chant by a husband and wife. The couple won a lawsuit granting them royalties from the song.
The UK band The Lightning Seeds of "Pure" fame got their name from a misheard line in Prince's "Raspberry Beret," mistaking "thunder drowns out what the lightning sees" for "thunder drowns out the lightning seeds."
Eminem sampled Dido's "Thank You" for his song "Stan," and Dido appeared in his video as Stan's unfortunate wife.
"A Hard Day's Night" was the title song to The Beatles' first movie, which was surprisingly good: it was nominated for two Oscars.
"It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" was inspired by a dream where Michael Stipe conjured up images of people with the initials L.B.: Lester Bangs, Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Leonard Bernstein.
One of the great "we're all going down" songs is "Ship Of Fools" by World Party, written when Margaret Thatcher was in power in England.
Rickie Lee Jones on songwriting, social media, and how she's handling Trump.
Tim and his brother Richard are the Furs' foundation; Tim explains how they write and tells the story of "Pretty In Pink."
Kristian talks songwriting technique, like how the chorus should redefine the story, and how to write a song backwards.
When Dave recorded the first version of the song with his group the Blasters, producer Nick Lowe gave him some life-changing advice.
Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.
Writing great prog metal isn't easy, especially when it's for 60 musicians.