Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" is a very inspiring song, but it's really about heartbreak: David Coverdale wrote it when his first marriage was falling apart.
The title of the Metallica song "Ride The Lightning" came from a line in the Stephen King book The Stand where a guy is about to be executed.
There really is a Girl From Ipanema. Her name is Helo Pinheiro, and she would walk "Like a samba" past the bar the songwriters frequented, providing the inspiration.
"No Scrubs" introduced the term "scrub" to the popular lexicon, and defined it in the opening lines ("a scrub is a guy that think he's fine...").
"Cotton Eye Joe" is a folk song dating to the 1800s, but it became a hit when a Swedish act called Rednex did a psychokinetic version in 1994.
Hoyt Axton wrote the Three Dog Night hit "Joy To The World." He said the "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" line just came into his head after having a drink of wine.
P.F. was a teenager writing hits and playing on tracks for Jan & Dean when he wrote a #1 hit that got him blackballed.
His keyboard work helped define the Muscle Shoals sound and make him an integral part of many Neil Young recordings. Spooner is also an accomplished songwriter, whose hits include "I'm Your Puppet" and "Cry Like A Baby."
Justin wrote the classic "Nights In White Satin," but his fondest musical memories are from a different decade.
The former Dead Kennedys frontman on the past, present and future of the band, what music makes us "pliant and stupid," and what he learned from Alice Cooper.
Do you remember the first time you heard "email" in a song? How about "hater" or "Facebook"? Here are the songs where they first showed up.
