"Ho Hey" by The Lumineers is about New York City, where lead singer Wesley Schultz moved to make it in music. He was dismayed to find many "trust fund kids" in the music scene while he struggled to pay the rent.
George Michael was 17 and on a bus to his job at the cinema when he came up with the idea for "Careless Whisper" and the lyrics, "Something in your eyes calls to mind a silver screen."
"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty is set in Los Angeles, as he mentions Reseda, Mulholland and Ventura Boulevard.
The first female rapper to perform on a #1 hit? Surprisingly, it's Lil' Kim with the 2001 remake of "Lady Marmalade" for the movie Moulin Rouge. She was was joined on the track by Christina Aguilera, Missy Elliott, Pink and Mya.
The bedrock of David Guetta's Nicki Minaj-featuring single "Hey Mama" is a sample of "Rosie," a 1940s prison recording from folk archivist Alan Lomax that songwriter Esther Dean first showed the French DJ on YouTube.
In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.
The top Contemporary Christian artist of all time on song inspirations and what she learned from Johnny Carson.
How the American gangsta rappers made history by getting banned in the UK.
With the rise of Kindie rock, more musicians are embracing their inner child with tunes for tots - here, we look at pop stars who recorded kids' albums.
Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.
