The Men Without Hats lead singer wrote "The Safety Dance" after getting kicked out of a bar for dancing too aggressively. The song is literally about being safe to dance if you want to.
Rob Thomas put some Spanish flavor in his Carlos Santana collaboration "Smooth" with the line "my muñequita," a pet name for his wife Marisol that means "my little doll."
The lyrics to "Heartbreak Hotel" were written by a steel guitar player who was once a dishwasher repairman. He was inspired by a newspaper story about a man who killed himself and left behind a note saying only, "I walk a lonely street."
At the end of the Doors song "Touch Me," Jim Morrison chants, "Stronger than dirt!" The line is from an Ajax commercial where a white knight rides around destroying dirt.
Lily Allen wrote "Something's Not Right" for the soundtrack of the Peter Pan prequel, Pan. The song was inspired by the heartache that Allen experienced after suffering a miscarriage when she was six months pregnant with her first child by husband Sam Cooper in 2010.
Otis Day And The Knights, the fictional band created to perform "Shout" in the movie Animal House, became a real band, performing the song at colleges and other venues.
Stage urinals, flute devices, and the real Aqualung in this Fact or Fiction.
Toto's keyboard player explains the true meaning of "Africa" and talks about working on the Thriller album.
Stone Temple Pilots bass player Robert DeLeo names the songs that have most connected with fans and tells the stories behind tracks from their Tiny Music album.
Many unusual folks appear in Grateful Dead songs. Can you identify them?
Harry is Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap, Mark Shubb in The Folksmen, and Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.
