"Run To You" by Bryan Adams was written for Blue Oyster Cult, and the guitar part is modeled after "Don't Fear The Reaper." BOC turned it down, so Adams recorded it for his album Reckless.
"Walking In Memphis" isn't so much about Memphis as it is The Hollywood Cafe in Mississippi, where Marc Cohn encountered an older woman named Murial playing piano.
Thanks to the line "shake it like a Polaroid picture," Outkast's "Hey Ya!" made Polaroid cameras cool again. Many other artists have since mentioned Polaroid in their lyrics, including Eminem, Imagine Dragons, Keith Urban, Gorillaz and Tim McGraw.
Shinedown lead singer Brent Smith had a band before Shinedown that was dropped by Atlantic Records, but the label offered him a development deal - that was his "Second Chance."
"99 Luftballons" by Nena is about a Cold War scare when balloons showed up on radar and were mistaken as a nuclear threat.
Johnny Cash promised to stay true to his first wife in "I Walk The Line," but when the song became a hit he found himself on the road, having an affair with June Carter, who became his second wife.
How did The Edge get his name? Did they name a song after a Tolkien book? And who is "Angel of Harlem" about?
Was Justin the first to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher? Did Britney really blame him for her meltdown? Did his bandmates think he was gay?
Harry is Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap, Mark Shubb in The Folksmen, and Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.
The king of Christian worship music explains talks about writing songs for troubled times.
Established as a redoubtable singer-songwriter, the Men At Work frontman explains how religion, sobriety and Jack Nicholson play into his songwriting.