Janet Jackson's "Alright" video features Cab Calloway and Cyd Charisse, stars of musicals she loved as a kid.
AC/DC's 1990 song "Mistress For Christmas" is about Donald Trump, who was in the news because of his affair with the model Marla Maples.
An unexpected guest vocal: Marianne Faithfull on the Metallica song "The Memory Remains." A star in the '60s, this collaboration helped revive her career.
Stephen Tobolowsky, who played Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, inspired the Talking Heads song "Radio Head." Tobolowsky, who worked on David Byrne's film True Stories, claimed to have telepathic powers.
The bedrock of David Guetta's Nicki Minaj-featuring single "Hey Mama" is a sample of "Rosie," a 1940s prison recording from folk archivist Alan Lomax that songwriter Esther Dean first showed the French DJ on YouTube.
A key line in "Africa" is "I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become," which is about drifting away from what you really want in life. Toto keyboard player David Paich, who wrote the song, felt his work was consuming him.
Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.
"London Bridge," "Ring Around the Rosie" and "It's Raining, It's Pouring" are just a few examples of shockingly morbid children's songs.
Established as a redoubtable singer-songwriter, the Men At Work frontman explains how religion, sobriety and Jack Nicholson play into his songwriting.
Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale take us into their world of subversive performance art. They may be right about the De-Evoloution thing.
Before "Rap" was a form of music, it was something guys did to pick up girls in nightclubs. Donnie talks about "The Rapper" and reveals the identity of Leah.
