"Cult of Personality" by Living Colour incorporates speeches by John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Taylor Swift's “Shake It Off” was inspired by how she'd learned to deal with all the false rumors that circulated about her. "The only thing we can control is our reaction to that ,” said Swift. "You can either let it get to you … [or] you just shake it off."
The thunderclap sound heard in the Bee Gees song "Tragedy" was made by Barry Gibb with his mouth.
Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" is a mashup of "Werewolves Of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama." The album it came from was released in October, 2007, but they held off until summer, 2008 for a more seasonable release.
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is about a guy Jim Croce met in the National Guard, which Jim joined to keep him out of Vietnam. Leroy went AWOL, but got caught when he tried to pick up his paycheck.
Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.
Shears does very little promotion, which has kept him secluded from the spotlight. What changed when Cyndi Lauper had a hit with his song? Not much, really.
The writer of "Rainy Night in Georgia" and "Polk Salad Annie" explains how he cooks up his Louisiana swamp rock.
The Scorpions and UFO guitarist is also a very prolific songwriter - he explains how he writes with his various groups, and why he was so keen to get out of Germany and into England.
"I'll Be" was what Edwin called his "Hail Mary" song. He says it proves "intention of the songwriter is 180 degrees from potential interpretation by an audience."
Are classic songs like "Over The Rainbow" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the public domain?