Before she was famous on Friends, Courteney Cox danced on stage with Bruce Springsteen in his "Dancing In The Dark" video.
Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" is about the commercialization of Hawaii. On her first trip to the islands, she looked out of her hotel window and saw a parking lot as far as the eye could see.
"Yellow" by Coldplay is a deep, meaningful song, but the title has a rather prosaic origin: it came from the phone directory, known as "the yellow pages."
Shakira calls her sons Milan and Sasha her "Waka Kids" because she met their father, Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué, on the video shoot for "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)," the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
The original "Enter Sandman" lyric was about crib death, with the "sandman" killing a baby.
Bob Dylan's most popular song is "Like A Rolling Stone," which tells the story of a wealthy woman whose money and friends fall away. Dylan offers these mockingly encouraging words: "When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose."
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."
Their frontman (Chris Cornell) started out as their drummer, so Soundgarden takes a linear approach when it comes to songwriting. Kim explains how they do it.
Tyler talks about his true love: songwriting. How he identifies the beauty in a melody and turns sorrow into art.
Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.
The "Lowdown" and "Lido Shuffle" singer makes a habit of playing with the best in the business.
Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.