"Piano Man" was inspired by Billy Joel's time playing at a piano bar in Los Angeles. The "real estate novelist" was a guy who always talked about writing a book, but spent all his spare time in the bar.
MTV reversed the word "joint" in Tom Petty's "You Don't Known How It Feels" so it was unintelligible, but gave the video a VMA anyway.
The Boyz II Men hit "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" is an a capella cover of a song from 1975 by G.C. Cameron that was used in the movie Cooley High to express the feeling of parting ways with high school friends.
John Lennon got the title of the Beatles song "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" from an article in a magazine published by the National Rifle Association.
The eerie percussion and guitar for Portsihead's "Sour Times was sampled from Lalo Schifrin's "Danube Incident," music composed by the Argentine composer for an episode of Mission Impossible.
"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.
Meshell Ndegeocello talks about recording "Wild Night" with John Mellencamp, and explains why she shied away from the spotlight.
The 10 biggest "retirement tours" that didn't take.
John tells the "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" story and explains why he disappeared for so long.
A history of songs dealing with transgender issues, featuring Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Morrissey and Green Day.
Iron Maiden, Adele, Toto, Eminem and Earth, Wind & Fire are just some of the artists with songs directly inspired by movies - and not always good ones.
The lead singer/lyricist for Anberlin breaks down "Impossible" and covers some tracks from their 2012 album Vital.
