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 the song wasn't issued as a single until summer, 2008 for a more seasonable release.
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."
"The Night Chicago Died" was written and recorded by the British group Paper Lace. They talk about Al Capone in the song, but got a lot of details wrong - understandable since they wrote it based on gangster movies.
"No Scrubs" introduced the term "scrub" to the popular lexicon, and defined it in the opening lines ("a scrub is a guy that think he's fine...").
Bruce Springsteen wrote "Blinded By The Light," which was a #1 hit for Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The "Madman Drummers" line is a reference to Springsteen's first E-Street drummer, Vinnie "Mad dog" Lopez.
A section of verse lyrics in Rihanna's "SOS" is made up of titles from '80s hits - check out the part that starts, "Take me on, I could just die up in your arms tonight."
An interview with Ray and Derek Shulman of the progressive rock band Gentle Giant to discuss counterpoint, polyrhythms, and... Bon Jovi.
Iron Maiden, Adele, Toto, Eminem and Earth, Wind & Fire are just some of the artists with songs directly inspired by movies - and not always good ones.
The stories behind "Shine," "December," "The World I Know" and other Collective Soul hits.
Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.
Gramm co-wrote this gorgeous ballad and delivered an inspired vocal, but the song was the beginning of the end of his time with Foreigner.
The singer/bassist for Concrete Blonde talks about how her songs come from clairvoyance, and takes us through the making of their hit "Joey."