When "Nothin' On You" reached #1 on the Hot 100, B.o.B became the first American act whose name is a palindrome to top the chart. The other two who did so prior to the Atlanta rapper were both Scandinavian groups - ABBA and A-Ha.
"Jessie's Girl" was the #1 song in America when MTV went on the air. They put it in hot rotation right away, making the song even more popular.
Bob Seger got inspired to write "Night Moves" after watching the movie American Graffiti, which showed young people growing up in his "neck of the woods."
The line in John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb" that sounds like "that's when a smoke was a smoke" is actually "that's when a sport was a sport," according to the published lyric. In that sense, "sport" is an endearment for someone of good nature.
Pink Floyd's "Talkin' Hawkin'" uses a sample of Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice taken from a speech he made for a 1994 British Telecom commercial.
A Tribe Called Quest sampled the mellow groove of Lou Reed's 1972 classic "Walk On The Wild Side" on "Can I Kick It?" It fit their vibe, with Q-Tip and Phife Dawg trading lines about hanging out and having fun, the definition of "kickin' it."
Don breaks down "Hotel California" and other songs he wrote as a member of the Eagles. Now we know where the "warm smell of colitas" came from.
Known in America for the hit "If You Leave," OMD is a huge influence on modern electronic music.
Songwriters have used cards and card games to make sense of heartache, togetherness, and even Gonorrhea.
When televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart took on rockers like Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica, the rockers retaliated. Bono could even be seen mocking the preachers.
Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.
Waters tells the "Gypsy Woman" story, shares some of her songwriting insights, and explains how Dennis Rodman ended up on one of her songs.