The wild child Role Model sings about in "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out" is based on various women he encountered when he dove back into the dating pool after a long relationship.
Aimee Mann's "Save Me" was inspired by her relationship with the actor Dave Foley, who had gone through a divorce and was an emotional train wreck.
Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was a huge hit in 1970 and found new life when Janet Jackson sampled the bass riff on her 1989 hit "Rhythm Nation."
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is about a guy Jim Croce met in the National Guard, which Jim joined to keep him out of Vietnam. Leroy went AWOL, but got caught when he tried to pick up his paycheck.
"Don't Dream It's Over" is the biggest hit for Crowded House, whose lead singer, Neil Finn, sang it on tour when he joined Fleetwood Mac. He wrote the song when he was feeling a bit lost as a way of urging himself on.
Roger Daltrey stutters the vocal on "My Generation" by The Who. The idea was to sound like a British kid on speed.
Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.
Here is the church, here is the steeple - see if you can identify these lyrics that reference church.
Jim talks about the impact of "The Middle" and uses a tree metaphor to describe his songwriting philosophy.
An original member of Depeche Mode, Vince went on to form Erasure and Yaz.
Wolfgang Van Halen breaks down the songs on his debut album, Mammoth WVH, and names the definitive Van Halen songs from the Sammy and Dave eras.
One of the most dynamic bass player/songwriters of his time, Chris is the only member of Yes who has been with the band since they formed in 1968.