"Truckin'" was written as the Grateful Dead were starting their long, strange trip, settling into a life of constant touring. They rode busses and holed up in modest hotels to stay grounded.
"Today" by Smashing Pumpkins is sarcastic in the line "today is the greatest day." Lead singer Billy Corgan wrote it about the crippling depression he was battling following the band's first big tour.
Clarence Clemons, who played the sax in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, had the biggest solo hit of anyone in the group - aside from Springsteen - when "You're A Friend Of Mine" (a collaboration with Jackson Browne) hit #18 in 1985.
The songwriting team Leiber and Stoller wrote "Hound Dog" for a blues singer named Big Mama Thronton, who first recorded the song in 1953. Elvis covered it in 1956, and it became his biggest hit.
The title of Florence + the Machine's "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful" was inspired by the Los Angeles skyline.
Jack & Diane started off as an interracial couple; Mellencamp took race references out of the song at the request of his record company.
Many unusual folks appear in Grateful Dead songs. Can you identify them?
How a gym teacher, a janitor, and a junkie became part of some very famous band names.
Todd Rundgren explains why he avoids "Hello It's Me," and what it was like producing Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album.
The hitmaking songwriter/producer Sam Hollander with stories about songs for Weezer, Panic! At The Disco, Train, Pentatonix, and Fitz And The Tantrums.
Guitarist Tony Iommi on the "Iron Man" riff, the definitive Black Sabbath song, and how Ozzy and Dio compared as songwriters.
Phil was a songwriter, producer and voice behind many Philadelphia soul classics. When disco hit, he got an interesting project: The Village People.