Hozier's "Take Me to Church" drew inspiration from the atheist writer Christopher Hitchens. He called it "a bit of a losing your religion song."
"Stay" by Lisa Loeb was the first #1 hit by an unsigned artist. It got a boost from Ethan Hawke, who got it into a movie he starred in called Reality Bites.
"Back In The U.S.S.R." by The Beatles was play on "California Girls" by The Beach Boys, with "Moscow girls" and "Ukraine girls" instead of the all-American girls.
"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.
Mariah Carey's song "The Roof" is about her first kiss with Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
When Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse's version of "Body and Soul" made the Hot 100 in 2011, Bennett became, at age 85, the oldest living artist to make that chart.
Established as a redoubtable singer-songwriter, the Men At Work frontman explains how religion, sobriety and Jack Nicholson play into his songwriting.
The powerhouse producer behind Janet Jackson's hits talks about his Boyz II Men ballads and regrouping The Time.
With Bernie Taupin, Martin co-wrote the #1 hits "We Built This City" and "These Dreams." After writing the Pretty Woman song for Go West, he had his own hit with "In the House of Stone and Light."
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.
Dan cracked the Top 40 with "Ritual," then went to India and spent 2 hours with the Dalai Lama.
