In the 1999 Destiny's Child song "Bug A Boo," they complain about a guy who bugs them on MCI, AOL, and their pagers.
The actress Michelle Pfeiffer gets namechecked in the 2014 megahit "Uptown Funk" ("Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold"). When it was released, "Riptide" by Vance Joy was on the charts; that song also mentions her ("Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen").
The melody to "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney in a dream, but the lyrics he had to write consciously. His first attempt at the title was "Scrabble Eggs."
"November Rain" by Guns N' Roses has a literary influence: The lyric is based on a story called Without You by Del James.
Jimmy Buffett's "Cheeseburger In Paradise" has muenster (cheese), not mustard, as commonly misheard in the line "medium rare with muenster'd be nice."
In The Beatles' "When I'm 64," Paul McCartney asks a woman if she'll still be there for him when he's 64. In 2006, he got his answer when shortly before his 64th birthday, he and Heather Mills separated.
Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.
Songwriters have used cards and card games to make sense of heartache, togetherness, and even Gonorrhea.
In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.
Writing with Phil Lynott, Scott saw their ill-fated frontman move to a darker place in his life and lyrics.
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.
Michelle Branch talks about "Everywhere," "The Game Of Love," and her run-in with a Christian broadcasting network.