
Thirty years after Jimi Hendrix played "Fire" at Woodstock, Red Hot Chili Peppers played it at Woodstock '99, but this time the unruly crowd actually set fires and looted.

Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl" opens with the South African female singer Letta Mbulu saying the Swahili phrase "Naku penda piya-naku taka piya-mpenziwe." There was some geographic liberty here, as Swahili is not spoken in the West African nation of Liberia.

Ellie Goulding's hit song "Lights" is about her fear of the dark, which forces the singer to sleep with the lights on.

"We're An American Band" by Grand Funk describes real events on their 1972 tour, including an encounter with a legendary groupie called "Sweet Connie."

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.

We were all party rocking in 2011 with the global smash "Party Rock Anthem," but rap fans know the "Everyday I'm shufflin'" line is a take on "Everyday I'm hustlin'" from the 2006 Rick Ross track "Hustlin'."
It started with a bouncy MTV classic. Nirvana and MCR made them scary, then Gwen, Avril and Madonna put on the pom poms.
Tom talks about the evolution of Cinderella's songs through their first three albums, and how he writes as a solo artist.
Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan explains the "few red lights" in "Smoke On The Water" and talks about songs from their 2020 album Whoosh!
A founding member of the band War, Harold gives a first-person account of one of the most important periods in music history.
"Come On Eileen" was a colossal '80s hit, but the band - far more appreciated in their native UK than stateside - released just three albums before their split. Now, Dexys is back.
Oliver Leiber talks about writing and producing hits for Paula Abdul, and explains his complicated relationship with his father, the songwriter Jerry Leiber.