"Grenade" was a term used on the show Jersey Shore to mean an ugly girl. Bruno Mars says his hit song with that title was written before the show started.
Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" is about Christie Brinkley, who he married, but it started as a song about Elle McPherson, who he also went out with.
"Soul Man" was a new term when the song was written in 1967. As defined by the song's co-writer, David Porter, the Soul Man doesn't have a fancy big-city slant, but has "the emotional thing happening inside of him that made people really love him."
Paul McCartney wrote "Ebony and Ivory," his duet with Stevie Wonder, after a tiff with his wife Linda. "It was like, 'Why can't we get it together- our piano can,'" he explained.
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.
The events described in Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic," like rain on your wedding day, are not examples of irony. Irony is the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.
A band so baffling, even their names were contrived. Check your score in the Ramones version of Fact or Fiction.
Producer Rupert Hine talks about crafting hits for Tina Turner, Howard Jones and The Fixx.
The trail runs from flying saucer songs in the '50s, through Bowie, blink-182 and Katy Perry.
Fishbone has always enjoyed much more acclaim than popularity - Angelo might know why.
Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett are just a few of the artists who have looked to Clark for insightful, intelligent songs.
The top chant artist in the Western world, Krishna Das talks about how these Hindu mantras compare to Christian worship songs.