James Brown's "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" was the first Hot 100 hit with the word "sex" in the title.
"1979" by Smashing Pumpkins is about Billy Corgan entering adulthood. A more accurate year would be 1983, but 1979 was easier to rhyme.
Rod Stewart wrote "Maggie May" about the woman who deflowered him when he was 16.
The guys from Chic wrote "Le Freak" as a message to a doorman who wouldn't let them into a club. Originally, it was "F--- Off."
Alicia Keys wrote "If I Ain't Got You" just after she'd heard the news that Aaliyah had passed away. in a plane crash.
Bing Crosby debuted the song "White Christmas" in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, where he plays a New Yorker stuck in Southern California for Christmas and missing the snow. The song became a Christmas classic and the basis for the 1954 movie White Christmas, also starring Crosby.
If the name Citizen Dick means anything to you, there's a chance you'll get some of these right.
With the band in danger of being dropped from their label, Alice Cooper drummer Neal Smith co-wrote the song that started their trek from horror show curiosity to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Beef with Bon Jovi? An unfortunate Spandex period? See if you can spot the true stories in this Metallica version of Fact or Fiction.
Songs about drugs, revolution and greed that have been used in commercials for sneakers, jeans, fast food, cruises and cars.
An interview with Dr. John Covach, music professor at the University of Rochester whose free online courses have become wildly popular.
Long before Eminem, Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj created alternate personas, David Bowie, Bono, Joni Mitchell and even Hank Williams took on characters.