Pete Townshend wrote the lyrics for "My Generation" by The Who during a train ride from London to Southampton on his 20th birthday when he was thinking about "trying to find a place in society."
"Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia was first recorded by the group Ednaswap in 1993. It was written by Ednaswap's Anne Previn and Scott Cutler, who went on to write some hits for Miley Cyrus.
In the Belly song "Feed The Tree," the title is a reference to bodies buried under a large tree, thus feeding it. The song is about death, and also respect - take your hat off for those feeding the tree!
The bedrock of David Guetta's Nicki Minaj-featuring single "Hey Mama" is a sample of "Rosie," a 1940s prison recording from folk archivist Alan Lomax that songwriter Esther Dean first showed the French DJ on YouTube.
Celine Dion's 1998 festive tune "The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)" came from an unlikely source. It was penned by Dee Snider of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister.
"It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy was based on an Eddie Murphy comedy bit where he would deny everything no matter how badly he was caught.
Is "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" about Vietnam? Was John Fogerty really born on a Bayou? It's the CCR edition of Fact or Fiction.
Is Owl City on a quest for another hit like "Fireflies?" Adam answers that question and explains the influences behind many others.
Lita talks about how they wrote songs in The Runaways, and how she feels about her biggest hit being written by somebody else.
With the rise of Kindie rock, more musicians are embracing their inner child with tunes for tots - here, we look at pop stars who recorded kids' albums.
The renown rock singer talks about "The House of the Rising Sun" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."
You know the scenes - Tom Cruise in his own pants-off dance off, Molly Ringwald celebrating her birthday - but do you remember what song is playing?