On Missy Elliott's "Work It," the backward vocal is the previous line, "Put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it," in reverse. She stumbled on it when the engineer played it backward by mistake.
"In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins was revived when it was used in the first episode of Miami Vice, three years after it was released.
Part of the "Cruel to Be Kind" video was shot during Nick Lowe and Carlene Carter's wedding.
Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl" opens with the South African female singer Letta Mbulu saying the Swahili phrase "Naku penda piya-naku taka piya-mpenziwe." There was some geographic liberty here, as Swahili is not spoken in the West African nation of Liberia.
In Beastie Boys' "Paul Revere," the title refers to the name of a horse. They took it from a song in the musical Guys And Dolls where a character sings, "I got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere."
Props to Aretha Franklin: her song "Respect" introduced the term "propers" as a sign of proper respect.
The Garbage drummer/songwriter produced the Nirvana album Nevermind, and Smashing Pumpkins' Gish and Siamese Dream.
Charlotte was established in the LA punk scene when a freaky girl named Belinda approached her wearing a garbage bag.
Michael tells the story of "Send Me On My Way," and explains why some of the words in the song don't have a literal meaning.
Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger tells the "Sister Christian" story and explains why he started sweating when he saw it in Boogie Nights.
P.F. was a teenager writing hits and playing on tracks for Jan & Dean when he wrote a #1 hit that got him blackballed.
Have you got the smarts to know which of these graduation song stories are real?