Billy Joel's song "Allentown" was written as "Levittown," which is the town in Long Island where he grew up. He got the idea to change it after taking a trip to Pennsylvania.
The "Mum-mum-mum-ma" hook on lady Gaga's "Poker Face" was sampled from Boney M's 1977 hit "Ma Baker."
The 1979 song "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads deals with how technology could be exploited to take down the framework of society and enable government surveillance.
Andre 3000 played all the instruments on Outkast's "Hey Ya" except bass. Aaron Mills from Cameo played that.
Janet Jackson wrote the lyric to "Nasty" in response to random guys calling her "baby."
Michelle Branch talks about "Everywhere," "The Game Of Love," and her run-in with a Christian broadcasting network.
The singer-songwriter Melanie talks about her spiritual awakening at Woodstock, "Brand New Key," and why songwriting is an art, not a craft.
Chris and his wife Tina were the rhythm section for Talking Heads when they formed The Tom Tom Club. "Genius of Love" was their blockbuster, but David Byrne only mentioned it once.
Long before Eminem, Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj created alternate personas, David Bowie, Bono, Joni Mitchell and even Hank Williams took on characters.
Can you be married in one country but not another? Only if you're part of a gay couple. One of the first famous singers to come out as a lesbian, Janis wrote a song about it.
Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.
