The "Doctor of philosophy" in the Indigo Girls' song "Closer To Fine" is based on a teacher Emily Saliers had who had a poster of Rasputin on his door.
Mike Nesmith wrote Linda Ronstadt's first hit, "Different Drum," before he joined The Monkees. He played an intentionally bad version of it on the show.
The actor Dan Aykroyd sang on "We Are The World." LaToya Jackson did too, so we know they weren't all that picky.
Cheap Trick's original version of "I Want You To Want Me" was countrified and kind of hokey. When they sped it up for their Live At Budokan album, it became a huge hit.
After 47 visits to the Hot 100, Justin Bieber topped the tally for the first time on September 17, 2015 with "What Do You Mean?"
The video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" features YouTube stars Chris Crocker, The Chocolate Rain Guy, The "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" Banana, and the Star Wars kid.
The Brazilian rocker sees pictures in his riffs. When he came up with one of his gnarliest songs, there was a riot going on.
The outlaw country icon talks about the spiritual element of his songwriting and his Bob Dylan mention.
Tyler talks about his true love: songwriting. How he identifies the beauty in a melody and turns sorrow into art.
When singers started spoofing their own songs on Sesame Street, the results were both educational and hilarious - here are the best of them.
Bob was the bass player and lyricist for the first two Ozzy Osbourne albums. Here's how he wrote songs like "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" with Ozzy and Randy Rhoads.
Tom stopped performing Thompson Twins songs in 1987, in part because of their personal nature: "Hold Me Now" came after an argument with his bandmate/girlfriend Alannah Currie.