David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" was likely based on various musicians in his ambit, including Iggy Pop (zIGGY), and Jimi Hendrix, who played guitar left-handed ("He played it left hand").
The horn flourish at the beginning of "Jump Around" comes from Bob and Earl's "Harlem Shuffle"; the squeal throughout the song might be a Prince sample.
Billy Joel is surprised that "Piano Man" is so successful. He called it "an old, long song about a guy at a depressing piano bar."
One of Tom Petty's most personal songs is "Room At The Top," which he stopped performing because it brought back painful memories.
Celine Dion's 1998 festive tune "The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)" came from an unlikely source. It was penned by Dee Snider of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister.
"St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" was not written for the movie, but for Rick Hanson, a wheelchair athlete whose 1985 "Man In Motion" tour logged 24,856 miles on his wheelchair in 34 countries while raising $26 million for spinal cord research.
Beef with Bon Jovi? An unfortunate Spandex period? See if you can spot the true stories in this Metallica version of Fact or Fiction.
Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.
"Mony Mony," "Crimson and Clover," "Draggin' The Line"... the hits kept coming for Tommy James, and in a plot line fit for a movie, his record company was controlled by the mafia.
The Canadian superstar talks about his sudden rise to fame, and tells the stories behind his hits "Sunglasses At Night," "Boy In The Box" and "Never Surrender."
When Judd Apatow needed under-appreciated rockers for his Knocked Up sequel, he immediately thought of Parker, who just happened to be getting his band The Rumour back together.
How well do you know your David Bowie lyrics? Take this quiz to find out.