Sweet's hit "Ballroom Blitz" was inspired by an incident in 1973 when the band were performing in Scotland and driven offstage by a barrage of bottles.
The "Ms. Jackson" in the OutKast song is Erykah Badu's mother. Andre 3000 had a child with Badu, and felt she was portraying him as a lousy dad.
On Missy Elliott's "Work It," the backward vocal is the previous line, "Put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it," in reverse. She stumbled on it when the engineer played it backward by mistake.
"Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler is a tribute to the vampire movie Nosferatu, depicting an immortal "love in the dark."
The guy who wrote Taylor Dayne's "Tell It To My Heart" owns a collection of famous baseballs, including the one that went through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series.
"Tammy" by Debbie Reynolds was the only US #1 single by a female act between July 1956 and February 1958.
Here's what happens when an opening act is really out of place with the headliner, like when Beastie Boys opened for Madonna.
Not everyone can be a superhero, but that hasn't stopped generations of musicians from trying to be Superman.
The drummer for Anthrax is also a key songwriter. He explains how the group puts their songs together and tells the stories behind some of their classics.
On Glen's résumé: hit songwriter, Facebook dominator, and member of Styx.
The singer-songwriter Melanie talks about her spiritual awakening at Woodstock, "Brand New Key," and why songwriting is an art, not a craft.
Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.