1995-
The drum sound on Buddy Knox's 1957 US #1 hit "Party Doll" was actually made by a cardboard box filled with cotton.
Otis Day And The Knights, the fictional band created to perform "Shout" in the movie Animal House, became a real band, performing the song at colleges and other venues.
Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird" in Scotland after reading about race riots in the U.S. when federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital's school system.
"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" is based on billboards John Lennon and Yoko Ono posted two years earlier declaring "War Is Over! If You Want It."
One of the great "we're all going down" songs is "Ship Of Fools" by World Party, written when Margaret Thatcher was in power in England.
Celine Dion's 1998 festive tune "The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)" came from an unlikely source. It was penned by Dee Snider of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister.
The Def Leppard frontman talks about their "lamentable" hit he never thought of as a single, and why he's juiced by his Mott The Hoople cover band.
Their frontman (Chris Cornell) started out as their drummer, so Soundgarden takes a linear approach when it comes to songwriting. Kim explains how they do it.
He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."
The (Meat)puppetmaster takes us through songs like "Lake Of Fire" and "Backwater," and talks about performing with Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged.
Harry is Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap, Mark Shubb in The Folksmen, and Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.
