"Magic" was the first word to serve as both the title of a #1 hit (Olivia Newton-John's 1980 tune "Magic") and the name of an artist behind a chart-topping song (Magic!'s 2014 hit "Rude").
Paul McCartney based the "Eleanor Rigby" story on old ladies he met at his housing estate. He saw how sometimes when they died, nobody really noticed.
The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??" was named in March 2009 the official Rock Song of Oklahoma. Four years later, Oklahoma's governor Mary Fallin pulled the tune as the state's official rock song in a move her office said had more to do with priorities than musical taste.
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift earned an entry in the 2014 edition of the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest-selling digital single. It reached the #1 spot on iTunes just 50 minutes after its release.
"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...").
The Cure's "Lullaby" is based on a recurring nightmare frontman Robert Smith had as a child where he was eaten by a giant spider.
The top chant artist in the Western world, Krishna Das talks about how these Hindu mantras compare to Christian worship songs.
The trail runs from flying saucer songs in the '50s, through Bowie, blink-182 and Katy Perry.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.
The man who brought us "Red Skies" and "Saved By Zero" is now an organic farmer in France.
The Stooges guitarist (and producer of the Kill City album) talks about those early recordings and what really happened with David Bowie.
Rosanne talks about the journey that inspired her songs on her album The River & the Thread, including a stop at the Tallahatchie Bridge.
