"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty is set in Los Angeles, as he mentions Reseda, Mulholland and Ventura Boulevard.
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.
Bernie Taupin was 17 when he wrote the lyrics to Elton John's "Your Song." Looking back, he says it's "one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music."
Pink Floyd's "Talkin' Hawkin'" uses a sample of Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice taken from a speech he made for a 1994 British Telecom commercial.
New Order took the title for "Blue Monday" from an illustration, which read "Goodbye Blue Monday," in the Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast Of Champions. The image referred to the invention of the washing machine improving housewives' lives.
The first single from the Thriller album was "The Girl Is Mine," chosen over "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" because it was a duet with Paul McCartney and thus guaranteed airplay.
How well do you know this shock-rock harbinger who's been publicly executed hundreds of times?
Rosanne talks about the journey that inspired her songs on her album The River & the Thread, including a stop at the Tallahatchie Bridge.
The 10 biggest "retirement tours" that didn't take.
Charlie discusses the songs that made him a Southern Rock icon, and settles the Devil vs. Johnny argument once and for all.
For songwriters, Johnny represents the American man. He has been angry, cool, magic, a rebel and, of course, marching home.
Just how much did these monsters of rock dabble in the occult?
