"Head Over Heels" by The Go-Go's is a metaphor for how things were getting out of control for the band; they broke up a year later.
Cheap Trick hated the ballad "The Flame" but recorded it because they needed a hit, and the song delivered, going to #1.
Blur's "There Are Too Many of Us" was inspired in part by a siege in an Australian chocolate café that Damon Albarn witnessed, which resulted in the death of the gunman and two hostages.
"The Night Chicago Died" was written and recorded by the British group Paper Lace. They talk about Al Capone in the song, but got a lot of details wrong - understandable since they wrote it based on gangster movies.
Before launching his career as a singer, Bruno Mars was a writer/producer. He and his co-writers pitched "Just The Way You Are" to Cee-Lo Green; when he turned it down, Bruno recorded it himself and released it in 2010 as his first single as a lead artist.
Cher was 43 in 1989 when she landed one of her biggest hits: "If I Could Turn Back Time." It made her an unlikely MTV star thanks to a video shot on the battleship USS Missouri where she's entertaining the troops in fishnet stockings and a thong.
The longtime Eagle talks about soaring back to his solo career, and what he learned about songwriting in the group.
Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.
In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.
One of the most popular classical vocalists in the land is lining up a trip to space, which is the inspiration for many of her songs.
Many unusual folks appear in Grateful Dead songs. Can you identify them?
The man who created Yacht Rock with "Sailing" wrote one of his biggest hits while on acid.