The New Year's Eve favorite "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish song that roughly translates to "Days Of Long Ago."
Before launching his career as a singer, Bruno Mars was a writer/producer. He and his co-writers pitched "Just The Way You Are" to Cee-Lo Green; when he turned it down, Bruno recorded it himself and released it in 2010 as his first single as a lead artist.
New Order got the title for "Blue Monday" from an illustration that read "Goodbye Blue Monday" in the Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast Of Champions. The image refers to the invention of the washing machine improving housewives' lives.
Devo got the idea for their "Whip It" video from an article about a guy who owned a dude ranch and charged people to watch him remove his wife's clothes with a bullwhip.
Steely Dan's engineer, Roger Nichols, built one of the first drum machines, which they used on "Hey Nineteen."
Kung Fu was big in 1974, with movies by Bruce Lee and a TV series called Kung Fu. Carl Douglas brought it to the dance floor that year with "Kung Fu Fighting," a #1 hit.
The men of Sparks on their album Hippopotamus, and how Morrissey handled it when they suggested he lighten up.
On Glen's résumé: hit songwriter, Facebook dominator, and member of Styx.
Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.
The Brazilian rocker sees pictures in his riffs. When he came up with one of his gnarliest songs, there was a riot going on.
Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.
