Most of us only know "Bad Boys" by Inner Circle from the 25 seconds used as the Cops theme, but it's a full song telling the story of a Jamaican youth who doesn't accept family support and ends up a criminal.
The 2001 Dirty Vegas hit "Days Go By" was written by their lead singer when he was longing for his ex-girlfriend. The sad song gave him a happy ending though: They got back together after it was released and eventually got married.
Sarah McLachlan wrote "Angel" about the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin, who overdosed on heroin and died in 1996.
When "Nothin' On You" reached #1 on the Hot 100, B.o.B became the first American act whose name is a palindrome to top the chart. The other two who did so prior to the Atlanta rapper were both Scandinavian groups - ABBA and A-Ha.
Lyrically, Elvis Costello's "Watching The Detectives" was inspired by American detective shows; musically, it was inspired by The Clash.
The Devo song "Freedom Of Choice" is about mindless consumerism - how people like to make frivolous choices, but otherwise want to be told what to do.
Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.
The lead singer of Everclear, Art is also their primary songwriter.
They sang about pink torpedoes and rocking you tonight tonight, but some real lyrics are just as ridiculous. See if you can tell which lyrics are real and which are Spinal Tap in this lyrics quiz.
The Doobies guitarist and lead singer, Tom wrote the classics "Listen To The Music," "Long Train Runnin'" and "China Grove."
In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.
What's the deal with "Summer of '69"? Bryan explains what the song is really about, and shares more of his songwriting insights.