Lady Gaga says that "Poker Face" is about her personal experience with bisexuality; being with a man but thinking about a woman.
"Dark Fantasy" by Kanye West opens with a reinterpretation of Cinderella as read by Nicky Minaj.
The TV show Cheers was nearly canceled after its first season, but the theme song, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," was very popular. To satisfy viewer demand, the theme was made into a full song and released as a single.
The "Doctor of philosophy" in the Indigo Girls' song "Closer To Fine" is based on a teacher Emily Saliers had who had a poster of Rasputin on his door.
George Harrison's 1971 song "Bangla Desh" was the first major charity single. It was part of a concert held to bring relief to the people of Bangladesh, who were fighting for independence and suffering from a famine.
Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" is about the commercialization of Hawaii. On her first trip to the islands, she looked out of her hotel window and saw a parking lot as far as the eye could see.
The man who ran Nirvana's first label gets beyond the sensationalism (drugs, Courtney) to discuss their musical and cultural triumphs in the years before Nevermind.
A talk with Martin Popoff about his latest book on Rush and how he assessed the thousands of albums he reviewed.
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."
David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.
Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.
Collaborating with T Bone Burnett, Leslie Phillips changed her name and left her Christian label behind - Robert Plant, who recorded one of her songs on Raising Sand, is a fan.
