Humphrey Bogart starred as Philip Marlowe in the 1946 film The Big Sleep.
Lou Reed's 11-minute "Street Hassle" features a spoken part by Bruce Springsteen.
"Stop Your Sobbing" was first recorded by The Kinks in 1964. It became the Pretenders first single 15 years later, leading to a relationship between Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde.
The Ben Folds Five song "Brick" is about a difficult time when Folds' girlfriend got an abortion.
Bob Seger's "Against The Wind" has the famous mind-bending line, "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Seger was going to cut it, but his Eagles buddies Glenn Frey and Don Henley told him it was the best line in the song.
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.
"Breakin'... There's No Stopping Us," the title song to the movie Breakin', was a hit and helped breakdancing go mainstream when it was released in 1984. The song has scratches and other hip-hop flourishes, but no rapping, which would have kept it off many playlists.
Wolfgang Van Halen breaks down the songs on his debut album, Mammoth WVH, and names the definitive Van Halen songs from the Sammy and Dave eras.
Are classic songs like "Over The Rainbow" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the public domain?
The Doobies guitarist and lead singer, Tom wrote the classics "Listen To The Music," "Long Train Runnin'" and "China Grove."
What happens when Kurt Cobain, Iron Maiden and Johnny Lydon are told to lip-synch? Some hilarious "performances."
The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.
Not everyone can be a superhero, but that hasn't stopped generations of musicians from trying to be Superman.