Paul McCartney based the "Eleanor Rigby" story on old ladies he met at his housing estate. He saw how sometimes when they died, nobody really noticed.
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.
"Irreplaceable" wasn't specifically penned for Beyonce - in fact, Ne-Yo wrote it more as a country song and had Faith Hill and Shania Twain in mind.
The band Simple Minds took their name from the line "He's so simple minded he can't drive his module" in David Bowie's "The Jean Genie."
Before recording "Boom Clap" herself, Charli XCX offered the song to Hilary Duff, but her people turned down the tune because it "wasn't cool enough for Hilary."
Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up The Sun" isn't as lighthearted as it seems: the song deals with the prevailing head-in-the-sand reaction to climate change.
Since emerging from MySpace with her hit "Bubbly," Colbie has become a top songwriter, even crafting a hit with Taylor Swift.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.
Just like Darrin was replaced on Bewitched, groups have swapped out original members, hoping we wouldn't notice.
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.
Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.
Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.