Bono came up with the idea of focusing on a soldier's last thoughts as he dies from his wounds in the U2 song "White As Snow" after reading William Golding's 1956 novel Pincher Martin.
Jack & Diane started off as an interracial couple; Mellencamp took race references out of the song at the request of his record company.
The Texas songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker wrote "Mr. Bojangles" after a weekend in jail where a fellow inmate told him his life story.
John Mellencamp considers "Pink Houses" an "anti-American song," laying bare the struggles of the poor and working class.
Elvis Presley recorded "Always On My Mind" in 1972, but Willie Nelson's version 10 years later was the hit and won the Song of the Year Grammy.
Jon Bon Jovi earned his first movie credit - Young Guns II - by writing "Blaze Of Glory" for the film.
Christopher Cross with Deep Purple? Kenny Loggins in Caddyshack? A Fact or Fiction all about yacht rock and those who made it.
With the band in danger of being dropped from their label, Alice Cooper drummer Neal Smith co-wrote the song that started their trek from horror show curiosity to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.
When Judd Apatow needed under-appreciated rockers for his Knocked Up sequel, he immediately thought of Parker, who just happened to be getting his band The Rumour back together.
Doors expert Jim Cherry, author of The Doors Examined, talks about some of their defining songs and exposes some Jim Morrison myths.
Roger reveals the songwriting formula Clive Davis told him, and if "Eight Miles High" is really about drugs.