Irving Berlin wrote "How Dry I Am" in anticipation of Prohibition, envisioning a bleak future without alcohol.
If you have a whole day to kill, you can check out the full version of Pharrell Williams' "Happy" music video, the world's first 24-hour music video.
Bob Dylan's most popular song is "Like A Rolling Stone," which tells the story of a wealthy woman whose money and friends fall away. Dylan offers these mockingly encouraging words: "When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose."
The Ben Folds Five song "Brick" is about a difficult time when Folds' girlfriend got an abortion.
Fifth Harmony was going to call their song "Work," but they changed it to "Work from Home" when Rihanna released a song with that title.
Jimmy Webb was inspired to write The 5th Dimension song "Up-Up and Away" after seeing a hot-air balloon his friend flew on promotions for the Southern California radio station KMEN.
Paul Stanley on his soul music project, the Kiss songs with the biggest soul influence, and the non-make-up era of the band.
He wrote "She Blinded Me With Science" so he could direct a video about a home for deranged scientists.
Wolfgang Van Halen breaks down the songs on his debut album, Mammoth WVH, and names the definitive Van Halen songs from the Sammy and Dave eras.
When he was asked to write a song for the Singles soundtrack, Mark thought the Seattle grunge scene was already overblown, so that's what he wrote about.
Writing with Phil Lynott, Scott saw their ill-fated frontman move to a darker place in his life and lyrics.
A talk with Martin Popoff about his latest book on Rush and how he assessed the thousands of albums he reviewed.