Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo on "Beat It" as a favor to Quincy Jones, who produced the album.
Pink Floyd's "Talkin' Hawkin'" uses a sample of Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice taken from a speech he made for a 1994 British Telecom commercial.
Shaggy wrote his swaggering hit "Boombastic" after learning what "shag" means in the UK.
Jo Dee Messina's 1996 country classic "Heads Carolina, Tails California" was inspired by a book released the previous year called Border Music by Robert James Waller, where the main character flips a coin to decide his next destination.
Pete Townshend wrote the lyrics for "My Generation" by The Who during a train ride from London to Southampton on his 20th birthday when he was thinking about "trying to find a place in society."
2001 was when collaborations between rappers and singers became commonplace, leading to a new Grammy category: Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The first winner was "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" by Eve and Gwen Stefani. This was before Stefani put out her first solo album.
Elvis, Little Richard and Cheryl Cole have all sung about Teddy Bears, but there is also a terrifying Teddy song from 1932 and a touching trucker Teddy tune from 1976.
Country songs with titles so bizarre they can't possibly be real... or can they?
The former Metallica bassist talks about his first time writing a song with James Hetfield, and how a hand-me-down iPad has changed his songwriting.
Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have some rather unusual song titles - see if you can spot the real ones.
Toto's keyboard player explains the true meaning of "Africa" and talks about working on the Thriller album.