50 Awesome Facts about Songs That Rocked The World

Eminem's song "Lose Yourself" was the first rap song to win an Oscar for Best Original Song, but Eminem did not even watch the awards because he did not think he stood a chance at winning. Instead, he fell asleep watching cartoons with his daughter.

2. "All Star" by Smash Mouth was written with the intention of being an upbeat, self-confidence building song for fans who were being bullied for liking Smash Mouth.

3. The Beastie Boys won a lawsuit against a company for the unauthorized use of their song "Girls" and had the $1 million settlement donated to a charity supporting education for girls.

4. The song "Mr. Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra was found to be the happiest song ever using a formula made by studying songs from a period of 50 years.

5. R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon” lyrics repeat “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”. Michael Stipe said his friend Kurt Cobain had a habit of placing "yeah" in Nirvana songs so Stipe wanted to outdo him by writing a song with more “yeahs.”

When Primus played their song "My Name is Mud" at the rainy Woodstock 94, the crowd responded by pelting the band with mud. The band's singer, Les Claypool, stopped the song and said: "when you throw things on stage, it's a sign of small and insignificant genitalia." The crowd ceased throwing.

7. Norman Greenbaum wrote the famous song, "Spirit in The Sky" in only 15 minutes, and has been living solely on the royalties for the last 50 years.

8. At the end of the Buddy Holly song, “I’m Gonna Love You Too,” there’s a live cricket chirp that can be heard on the recording. Holly and the group decided to leave it in the song as it was on the beat, and his band had only months earlier decided to call themselves The Crickets.

9. 17-year-old Kenny Loggins wasn't going to be able to record his song “House at Pooh Corner” because Disney was enforcing their copyright to Winnie the Pooh. Upset, he mentioned this to his girlfriend, only to find out her dad was the president of Disney. He soon got the permission.

10. Paul Simon listed "Fakin' It" as being 2:74 because radio stations wouldn't play anything listed at over 3 minutes long.

The song 'Africa' by Toto is actually about a boy "trying to write a song on Africa, but since he has never been there, he can only tell what he has seen on TV or remembers in the past". This explains the apparently inaccurate line about Kilimanjaro rising above the Serengeti.

12. Pearl Jam’s song “Jeremy” is based on the real-life classroom suicide of Jeremy Wade Delle of Texas, who was released from a mental hospital and sent back to school. Reportedly, once his insurance money ran out he was deemed “cured.”

13. In 2006, Gnarls Barkley removed their hit single 'Crazy' from music stores after it remained at the top of the British charts for 9 weeks, so people would "remember the song fondly and not get sick of it."

14. Bloodhound Gang recorded a track called “The Ten Coolest Things About New Jersey”. The “song” consists of 10 seconds of silence.

15. While writing the popular 1990s song Friday I'm in Love, The Cure frontman Robert Smith became convinced that he stole the tune from somewhere, and was so paranoid that he called every person he knew and played the song for them, asking if they recognized it. It was, indeed, unique.

Despite the widespread success of his song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," Solomon Linda never received a cent of its royalties and died poor in 1962. He didn't even get a gravestone until 18 years after his death.

17. The "Where do we go now?" ending to Guns N Roses 'Sweet Child O' Mine' was born from the band not knowing how to finish that part of the song.

18. The song "Red Red Wine" was written by Neil Diamond in 1967. The band UB40 covered it in 1983 in a light reggae style and it reached #1 on the Billboard 100. Diamond has stated that it is one of his favorite covers and he often performs the song in the UB40 style instead of the original version.

19. "Every Breath You Take" by The Police is supposed to be about someone obsessed with a lost lover, and who stalks them. Sting, who wrote it, is troubled by how many people think it is a love song.

20. The Barenaked Ladies song “One Week” peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, where it remained top spot for exactly one week.

The song “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was supposed to be a ballad, but during a recording session, Hawkins “screamed and grunted” through the whole song because he was drunk. It was his most-successful recording and is in The Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

22. “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” is an Italian pop song that is full of Gibberish. It meant to sound like how English sounds to non-English speakers.

23. The song 'Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)' was originally written as an anti-LSD track. Kenny Rogers covered it, leading to it becoming a counter-culture hit and a long-lasting representation of the late 60's psychedelic era.

24. The Weezer song "Mykel and Carli song", released in 1994, is about sisters Mykel and Carli Allan who established the band's fan club and are considered the band's biggest fans. Mykel and Carli, and younger sister Trisha, died in a car accident in 1997. Members of Weezer attended their funeral.

25. ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic wrote an original song called “Dare to Be Stupid” in the style of DEVO. Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh said, “I was in shock. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. He sort of re-sculpted that song into something else and... I hate him for it, basically.”