The CCR song "Run Through the Jungle" is about gun control.
The Doobie Brothers' swampy #1 hit "Black Water" is about the Mississippi River, evoking the rafting adventures Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn.
"99 Luftballons" by Nena is about a Cold War scare when balloons showed up on radar and were mistaken as a nuclear threat.
Mariah Carey's "My All" is about her affair with New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
One of the first hit songs used in a major marketing campaign was "Start Me Up" by The Rolling Stones. Microsoft paid $3 million to use it in commercials for Windows '95.
She thinks of herself as a "song interpreter," but back in the '80s another country star convinced Emmylou to take a crack at songwriting.
Wilder's hit "Break My Stride" had an unlikely inspiration: a famous record mogul who rejected it.
Hitmaker Carl Sturken on writing and producing for Rihanna, 'N Sync, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Donny Osmond, Shakira and Karyn White.
Dave explains how the video appropriated the meaning of "Runaway Train," and what he thought of getting parodied by Weird Al.
Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.