Jay-Z did the rap on "Crazy In Love" at the last minute. He and Beyoncé had started dating and the Texan songstress asked him to get on the song the night before she had to turn in her album.
"Mother" by Danzig is about censorship, specifically the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed record labels to put warning stickers on albums with explicit lyrics.
The first version of The Beatles "Helter Skelter" was a 27 minute jam, so you can imagine what Ringo was going through pounding away all that time. To convince the guys that he needed a break, he screamed, "I've got blisters on my fingers!" This was included on the fadeout.
Paper Mate paid for Autograph's "Turn Up The Radio" video in exchange for prominent placement of their erasable pen.
The guys who wrote "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" had never been to a baseball game but knew it was a good song topic.
The line "satellite of love" in the Def Leppard song "Rocket" came from the title of a 1972 Lou Reed song.
In the summer of 1990, you could get arrested for selling a 2 Live Crew album or performing their songs in Southern Florida. And that's exactly what happened.
You may not recognize his name, but you will certainly recognize Peter Lord's songs. He wrote the bevy of hits from Paula Abdul's second album, Spellbound.
Roger tells the stories behind some of his biggest hits, including "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song."
Michelle Branch talks about "Everywhere," "The Game Of Love," and her run-in with a Christian broadcasting network.
The guy who brought us "Stacy's Mom" also wrote the Jane Lynch Emmy song and Stephen Colbert's Christmas songs.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.