"Sloop John B" is a traditional West Indian folk song, and it was a huge hit for The Beach Boys in 1966. They tweaked the lyric, "This is the worst trip since I've been born" to "...I've ever been on" as a wink to acid culture.
Dolly Parton is just fine with Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You." Said Parton: "She can have the credit. I just want my cash."
The Austin Powers theme is "Soul Bossa Nova," written by Quincy Jones in 1962 - the same year the first James Bond movie was released.
"Mother" by Danzig is about censorship, specifically the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed record labels to put warning stickers on albums with explicit lyrics.
"Walking on a Thin Line" by Huey Lewis and the News is about an American soldier who is trained as a sniper in the Vietnam War. It was written for a documentary on the war.
"99 Luftballons" by Nena is about a Cold War scare when balloons showed up on radar and were mistaken as a nuclear threat.
The guy who brought us "Stacy's Mom" also wrote the Jane Lynch Emmy song and Stephen Colbert's Christmas songs.
Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.
Christopher Cross with Deep Purple? Kenny Loggins in Caddyshack? A Fact or Fiction all about yacht rock and those who made it.
Some album art was at least "inspired" by others. A look at some very similar covers.
Writing great prog metal isn't easy, especially when it's for 60 musicians.
Phone booths are nearly extinct, but they provided storylines for some of the most profound songs of the pre-cell phone era.