Chuck Berry's only #1 hit was "My Ding-a-Ling," a novelty song about a boy and his... you know.
Stephens Stills played timbales on the Bee Gees hit, "You Should Be Dancing." He was in the next door studio laying down a Crosby, Stills and Nash album and could hear Saturday Night Fever being recorded. Stills recognized its potential to be a monster hit and he wanted to contribute.
The eerie percussion and guitar for Portsihead's "Sour Times was sampled from Lalo Schifrin's "Danube Incident," music composed by the Argentine composer for an episode of Mission Impossible.
"The Rubberband Man" is a "short, fat guy" with rhythm and grace. Spinners producer Thom Bell wrote it to boost the self-esteem of his rotund son.
When Marc Cohn played "True Companion" to his girlfriend, she thought he was proposing. He wasn't, but he did eventually marry her.
Mike Nesmith wrote Linda Ronstadt's first hit, "Different Drum," before he joined The Monkees. He played an intentionally bad version of it on the show.
In this talk from the '80s, the Kansas frontman talks turning to God and writing "Dust In The Wind."
Some songs get a second life when they find a new audience through a movie, commercial, TV show, or even the Internet.
Daniel Lanois on his album Heavy Sun, and the inside stories of songs he produced for U2, Peter Gabriel, and Bob Dylan.
How the American gangsta rappers made history by getting banned in the UK.
Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.
