Sia Furler originally sent "Pretty Hurts" to Katy Perry, but she didn't see the email, so Beyonce ended up recording it instead.
Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start The Fire" after a 21-year-old told him, "everyone knows that nothing happened in the '50s."
The Split Enz song "Six Months In A Leaky Boat" is about the journey explorers made from Europe to colonize Australia and New Zealand, where the band is from.
Devo got the idea for their "Whip It" video from an article about a guy who owned a dude ranch and charged people to watch him remove his wife's clothes with a bullwhip.
The Kate Bush song "Why Should I Love You?" is a collaboration with Prince. He completely re-worked her demo, so Bush spent a lot of time piecing it back together to keep her imprint.
Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird" in Scotland after reading about race riots in the US, triggered when federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital's school system.
Justin wrote the classic "Nights In White Satin," but his fondest musical memories are from a different decade.
The king of Christian worship music explains talks about writing songs for troubled times.
Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale take us into their world of subversive performance art. They may be right about the De-Evoloution thing.
How Bing Crosby, Les Paul, a US Army Signal Corps Officer, and the Nazis helped shape rock and Roll.
Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger tells the "Sister Christian" story and explains why he started sweating when he saw it in Boogie Nights.
Evelyn McDonnell, editor of the book Women Who Rock, on why the Supremes are just as important as Bob Dylan.