Sarah McLachlan wrote "Angel" about the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin, who overdosed on heroin and died in 1996.
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is about a guy Jim Croce met in the National Guard, which Jim joined to keep him out of Vietnam. Leroy went AWOL, but got caught when he tried to pick up his paycheck.
"Baby Got Back" isn't just a booty song: it's about "Lack of acceptance by Hollywood of the African-American body."
"Walking on a Thin Line" by Huey Lewis and the News is about an American soldier who is trained as a sniper in the Vietnam War. It was written for a documentary on the war.
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.
After Cher revived "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" in 1990, Salt-N-Pepa released "Shoop" and Whitney Houston had a #1 hit with "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)."
Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Mila Kunis and John Malkovich are just a few of the film stars who have moonlighted in music videos.
Long before Eminem, Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj created alternate personas, David Bowie, Bono, Joni Mitchell and even Hank Williams took on characters.
The drummer for Anthrax is also a key songwriter. He explains how the group puts their songs together and tells the stories behind some of their classics.
The Third Day frontman talks about some of the classic songs he wrote with the band, and what changed for his solo country album.
Brian has unearthed outtakes by Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and hundreds of other artists for reissues. Here's how he does it.
