Steely Dan's engineer, Roger Nichols, built one of the first drum machines, which they used on "Hey Nineteen."
Dexys Midnight Runners' "Come on Eileen" is based on a real girl called Eileen that the band's Kevin Rowland had a relationship with in his early teenage years.
The first popular song to use the phrase "Heavy Metal" was "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf, which was featured in the movie Easy Rider.
The Ozzy Osbourne song "Mr. Crowley" is about Aleister Crowley, a British practitioner of dark magic in the early 1900s.
George Harrison's 1971 song "Bangla Desh" was the first major charity single. It was part of a concert held to bring relief to the people of Bangladesh, who were fighting for independence and suffering from a famine.
Sam Smith's "Writing's On The Wall" was the first ever James Bond theme song to reach #1 in the UK.
When he was asked to write a song for the Singles soundtrack, Mark thought the Seattle grunge scene was already overblown, so that's what he wrote about.
With a few clues (Works at a diner, dreams of running away), can you name the character in the song?
An Electronic music pioneer with Asperger's Syndrome. This could be interesting.
Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."
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.
Billie Jean, Delilah, Sara, Laura and Sharona - do you know who the girls in the songs really are?
