Dresses & Yarn

• Madonna said "Like a Prayer" is about a girl who's so in love with god he becomes the only male figure in her life. the lyrics are meant to be interpreted both sexually and religiously
• About "Running Up That Hill", Kate Bush explained: "I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other’s roles, if we could actually be in each other’s place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised! And I think it would lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was with the devil. And I thought, ‘well, no, why not a deal with God!’ You know, because in a way it’s so much more powerful, the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. You see, for me it is still called “Deal With God”, that was its title. But we were told that if we kept this title that it would not be played in any of the religious countries, Italy wouldn’t play it, France wouldn’t play it, and Australia wouldn’t play it! Ireland wouldn’t play it, and that generally we might get it blacked purely because it had God in the title"
• thanks to Stranger Things, Kate Bush has broken 3 records: the longest-ever gap between #1 singles, the longest time for a single to reach #1, and the oldest female artist ever to score a #1.

• the guitar solo in "Sweet Child O' Mine" was recorded in one take
• AC/DC recorded the beginnings of "Highway to Hell" on a cassette tape, which someone they were working with took home and gave to his kid. the kid completely unraveled and ripped the tape and they almost lost the entire composition. fortunately Bon Scott was able to repair it so they didn't lose the tune

• "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" almost wasn't recorded. Tears For Fears didn't like the song and thought no one would like the beat
• Buck Dharma said about "Don't Fear The Reaper": "It’s not about suicide, it’s about accepting death rather than bringing it about yourself, I felt that I had just achieved some kind of resonance with the psychology of people when I came up with that, I was actually kind of appalled when I first realized that some people were seeing it as an advertisement for suicide or something that was not my intention at all. It is, like, not to be afraid of it (as opposed to actively bring it about). It’s basically a love song where the love transcends the actual physical existence of the partners"

• American Pie is about evolution of rock & roll through the sixties, following the 1959 plane crash that led to the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. He also references many of the major events during the sixties
• Tom Cochrane wrote a demo called "Love is a Highway" in the late eighties, but shelved the song. Several years later he revisited it, and it became "Life is a Highway"

• Billie Joe Armstrong wrote "Wake Me Up When September Ends" about his father's death when he was 10. he had written it for the band's album Shenanigans, but wasn't emotionally ready to record it until American Idiot
• Noel Gallegher named the song "Wonderwall" after watching a film called Wonderwall – from Psychedelia to Surrealism, which George Harrison provided the soundtrack for

• when asked how he wrote Despacito, Luis Fonsi said: "I woke up one morning with “Despacito” in my head. It was just that simple and that obvious to me. For some reason, that melodic sequence right there and that word “despacito” just popped into my head. And then the first thing that came together was with that little last chorus about Puerto Rico. It was the rhyme between despacito, Puerto Rico, and “Ay! Bendito,” which is an expression that we say a lot in Puerto Rico. That was like the nucleus of it all. Later on that afternoon I had a writing session with a great friend of mine, a songwriter named Erika Ender. I was like, “Hey, look. I have this idea to do this fun, uptempo song. Let’s write this real sexy lyric around ‘despacito,’ which means slowly. And let’s do this lyric where it’s kinda borderline, maybe even double meaning, but just being really respectful.” And I think we found that happy medium, but everything just revolved around that one word, “despacito""
• "Smooth" was originally conceived by Itaal Shur as a song called "Room 17". The lyrics were stripped off and the track was given to Rob Thomas, who re-wrote the lyrics and melody and re-titled it "Smooth", then recorded the song as a demo to play for Santana. After hearing the song, Santana decided to have Thomas record the final version. Rob originally had George Michael in mind to sing the song

• the melody of "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney while he was asleep: "I had a piano by my bedside, and I must have dreamed it, because I tumbled out of bed and put my hands on the piano keys and I had a tune in my head. It was just all there, a complete thing. I couldn’t believe it. It came too easy"
• “Yesterday” is the most covered song in history, with over 2,000 versions having been recorded
• in the days after the Kennedy assassination, Paul Simon locked himself in the bathroom and composed the melody of "The Sound of Silence".
• Paul Simon originally wrote the song as an acoustic ballad for their debut, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, but Simon & Garfunkel’s first single version died and the album was considered a commercial failure. Later in ‘65, while Simon was in England, Tom Wilson asked members of Bob Dylan’s studio band to add electric guitar and drums. Columbia released the amplified Silence, which became a hit before Simon and Garfunkel had even heard it

• 4 Non Blondes bassist Christa Hillhouse said she was having sex when she heard Linda Perry working on "What's Up?" down the hall. she abruptly stopped and ran into her room to ask her what she was playing because she liked it so much
• the band chose to name the song "What's Up?" to avoid confusion with Marvin Gaye's song "What's Going On"
• Delores O'Riordan said she wrote "Dreams" about her first time falling in love

Devils Horns sunrise during a partial eclipse (2019) located: Al Wakrah, Qatar

• According to Peter Hodgson, as The Police began to record the song, Sting accidentally sat on a piano in the recording studio resulting in the piano chord and laughter you hear in the opening moments of the song
• "Brown Eyed Girl" was originally titled "Brown Skinned Girl", but the label made Van Morrison change the title
• because of the exploitive contract he was under, Van Morrison never got any royalties from "Brown Eyed Girl", his most-played and well-known song

• "Somebody to Love" was inspired by Aretha Franklin's music, particularly the gospel sound she's known for
• when asked what "Killer Queen" is about, Freddie Mercury said: “It’s about a high class call girl. I’m trying to say that classy people can be whores as well. That’s what the song is about, though I’d prefer people to put their interpretation upon it – to read into it what they like"