Collective Soul - You

This is one of two songs on the "Rabbit" album hat were a collective writing effort by the band, a rarity in Collective Soul's recording history. "We've never written together as a band," Roland told Billboard magazine, "so it was a new experience. I think it's the confidence that the other guys have gotten in their music skills and the songwriting and also, for lack of a better term, me letting go of my ego a little bit and going, 'You know what? These guys can do this.' And it was a lot of fun."

Rammstein - Du Hast

Although the German phrase does not translate to English, "Du hast" can mean "you have," but it can also mean "you hate." Therefore the song has two meanings. One being sort of "You hate me but still want to marry me" (the song is about marriage) and the other being "You want to marry me but I don't want to."

Better Than Ezra - Absolutely Still

This song reflects on the fragility of love and relationships. Frontman Kevin Griffin remarked in publicity materials that this song, "is about when you're with someone, and you have those fleeting moments of clarity when everything is right between the two of you, and you can block out all the chaos and noise outside. You don't have to say anything and everything is understood. Before it all goes wrong, there are all those perfect moments of bliss."

Auróra - Ez a város

Between 1984 and 1988 the band was playing under false names in order not to attract the attention of the “old friends”, the Hungarian Secret Service. At this time the band caught the attention of some Austrian punks who invited “Aurora” to play in Vienna. This was the first time the band played a cocncert outside Eastern Europe.

Auróra - Kifacsart citrom

Aurora was founded in Győr, Hungary by the young local punks “Vigi” (guitar vocals), “Galacs” (bass), “Polyak” (drums) and “Dauer” (vocals). This was in 1982, at the height of the Hungarian punk blast, a period in which a punk gig caused big agitation, occasionally by starting riots.
“ We started criticizing the Soviet Army a little bit too early. It wasn’t really a surprise when the authorities sent us for a trial because of anticommunist lyrics. Our original singer “Dauer” had to spend two years in prison because according to the authorities he had chosen a the “wrong words”, Vigi reminds of the old, “romantic” days.

12 Stones - Bulletproof

This is the second single from the band's fourth studio album. They released an official lyric video for it, but didn't make a real music video.

Nickelback - When We Stand Together

Nickelback wanted it to look like they were performing in the Serengeti for the music video, so director Justin Francis  brought the band to a field 30 miles outside of Los Angeles and digitally erased the city from the background in the wide shots. The clip also includes shots of people standing together during times of crisis.

Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter

Like many great songwriters, Damien Rice was part of the proletariat before he earned a living in music. Growing up in Kildare County, Ireland, he found himself working at a call center in the late '90s. His job was to cold call households and try to sell them products like insurance and mortgages. As anyone who has engaged a telemarketer in conversation is aware, this is a miserable job and one that requires a bit of mental dissociation. On one of Rice's calls, a woman answered the phone and began such a dialogue.

As Rice told the story when he would introduce the song at concerts, he enjoyed speaking to this lady and became smitten. They spoke for about an hour that day, not about financial products but about their hopes and dreams, developing quite a rapport by the end of the talk. For months, Rice "followed the lead" by calling her during his shifts, where they would continue their increasingly intimate chats.

Then one day she stopped answering. In these days before the proliferation of the internet, tracking down an unrequited love was more complicated than a Google search, but Rice was determined to find this woman. From his call list, he determined the address associated with the phone number, and he hopped a bus to the residence. He hid in the bushes until the woman emerged, and when she did, she was on her way to school - the woman was just a girl, maybe 16 years old.

Crestfallen, Rice realized that when he had called, she was on summer vacation, and she stopped answering when it was time to return to school. She had been using him for entertainment, and Rice was devastated. "The Blower's Daughter" was the song he wrote about the incident.

Csík Zenekar - Csillag vagy fecske

This is a traditional hungarian folk cover of a great hungarian alternative song.

Metallica - Hell And Back

This song was recorded for the band's Death Magnetic sessions but had not been released on the album itself. It was later released on the Beyond Magnetic EP.

The Airborne Toxic Event - All I Ever Wanted

A great song from The Airborne Toxic Event's second album.

Korn - Narcissistic Cannibal

Frontman Jonathan Davis on the song's meaning: "It's about me watching people who are so narcissistic destroy themselves. They basically eat themselves alive because of their narcissism. That's the gist of the story."

Daughtry - Crawling Back To You

The song's music video is a simple one of the band performing the song. Talking about the clip, Chris Daughtry said, "We wanted it to be a performance video not necessarily based on any narrative or story." The singer added, regarding his philosophy of filming visuals: "Whenever I do a video I have a hard time faking it. I always lose my voice at the end of a video shoot because I give it all every single take."

U2 - Sweetest Thing

Bono wrote this as a birthday present to his wife, Ali. On her birthday, he was working on recording The Joshua Tree, so he was trying to make up for it.

U2 recorded this for The Joshua Tree, but left it off because they felt it did not fit in on the album. It was originally released as the B-side to a 7" single that also included "Where The Streets Have No Name" and "Silver And Gold."

 

 

U2 - With Or Without You

The Edge used a distortion device called an "Infinite Guitar" to create the wail. It was invented by Michael Brook, who The Edge worked with on the soundtrack for The Captive. Brook created the Infinite Guitar by replacing the pickup on a guitar with a magnetic device that vibrates the strings. Co-producer Daniel Lanois told Mojo magazine January 2008 about the recording of this song: "'For 'With Or Without You' we had the rhythm and the chords then we were testing Michael Brook's Infinite Guitar Invention. I asked Edge just to play a little something with it. He did two takes and those are the ones in the ultimate mix of 'With Or Without You.' Beautiful sounds, stratospheric."

Cavo - Let It Go

Cavo frontman Casey Walker told Artist Direct about the meaning of this track: "It's a very meaningful song. It's the most personal song I've ever written. In my opinion, the first line of the second verse is the catalyst of the song—'There's a chance to change or stay the same.' I was at a point in my life where I realized that I had two options. I could either change or go down the other road and stay the same. Thankfully, I chose the right option. I can go back and think about that moment in time every single night that we play live and know I made the right choice."

U2 - Even Better Than The Real Thing

This song began with the title "The Real Thing" during the Rattle And Hum sessions. It's a play on the Coca-Cola slogan "It's The Real Thing," and the song was intended to make a statement about commercialism.

U2 performed this on the Zoo TV tour with huge monitors flashing messages and video clips behind the band. It was mocking the advertising messages that were constantly bombarding the public.

Richard Branson asked to use this to launch his Virgin Cola, a competitor of Coke, but U2 refused.

 

 

U2 - Mysterious Ways

While recording this in Berlin, U2 came up with the basis for their song "One." In a rush of creativity, they put together "One" and finished "Mysterious Ways" later. This was very refreshing for the band - they were having a hard time coming up with anything and even considered breaking up.

The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice

This innocent love song is told from the perspective of a young man who is deeply in love and enjoys spending every waking moment his sweetheart. In an era when most Americans married in their early 20s, these kind of songs often ended in wedding vows, but Brian Wilson took a different approach, making it a song about savoring their time in the present, as they are too young to be married. Even though he was very sophisticated musically, Wilson was looking for ways to relate to the teen audience and hit upon the "too young to be married" theme for this song.

Sum 41 - Motivation

This song is about having a lack of motivation. Deryck Whibley said in an interview that this song is like your Sunday, when you can't be bothered doing anything.

Bruce Springsteen - We Take Care Of Our Own

The song's music video was directed by Thom Zimmy and shot in early January 2012 in an abandoned theater in Asbury Park. Reflective close-ups and slow-motion images of working class Americans augment shots of Bruce performing. "You work with spontaneity," explained Zimmy to Uncut magazine. "The end of that video, for instance, where the people are walking, wasn't planned. The weekend we were shooting, the Light of Day charity concert event took place in town, so we gathered up some fans and people in the streets of Asbury Park and had that shot happen, then incorporated it into the video. With Bruce, you're planning, but you're always open to the moment."

Sum 41 - Makes No Difference

This was Sum 41's first single and their first video. The video was filmed in Toronto, where DMX was working on the movie Exit Wounds. He crossed paths with the band and offered to make a guest appearance, which Sum 41 accepted.

Sting - Shape Of My Heart

Sting said in 1993: "I wanted to write about a card player, a gambler who gambles not to win but to try and figure out something; to figure out some kind of mystical logic in luck, or chance; some kind of scientific, almost religious law. So this guy's a philosopher, he's not playing for respect and he's not playing for money, he's just trying to figure out the law - there has to be some logic to it. He's a poker player so it's not easy for him to express his emotions, in fact he doesn't express anything, he has a mask, and it's just one mask and it never changes."

Sting - Englishman In New York

Sting wrote this song about famed gay author Quentin Crisp and his experiences as an outcast. Crisp moved from London to New York in 1986, and Sting spent several days with the author.

Sting - Fields Of Gold

This song is about feeling joyous, but knowing that the joy is going to end someday. Sting wrote it after he bought a house near a barley field. The sunsets and the colors of the field were an inspiration for the lyrics, along with his love at the time, Trudie Styler, who he married in 1992. Styler has said that the song is one of her favorites.

Black Stone Cherry - White Trash Millionaire

Drummer John Fred Young explained the song's meaning to Rock AAA: "The song is actually about a Trans Am that Chris (the signer) had. It was the same kind of Trans Am that was in the Smokey and the Bandit movies and he had it for a few months before he sold it. That's actually what the song is about. Everybody around the world has a little bit of trash in them and it's just a fun song with us being ourselves."

Snow Patrol - New York

Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody struggled with writer's block when penning Fallen Empires. Speaking to Q magazine, the singer explained how a chance meeting with R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe at a Californian studio rejuvenated his writing process. He recalled, "I couldn't even write my name on a cheque. It was that bad at the time ... (Stipe arriving at the studio) was amazing because the first song I ever played live was R.E.M.'s 'Find the River' at a school concert."

Although Stipe's input was minimal, it was enough to inspire Lightbody to rediscover his muse. He recalled, "Michael just made a few suggestions here and there. On the track called 'New York' there was a line, 'Your face has never left me.' He said, 'That sounds like you've got a girl's head in your bag.' So we changed that."

Relient K - Baby

Relient K's awesome cover of the popular Justin Bieber song. :)

Rammstein - Mein Land

This is the first single and only previously unreleased track from German Industrial Metal band Rammstein's retrospective, Made in Germany 1995-2011. The English translation of the title is "My Land" and the song is a parodic satire about European xenophobia and Anti-Immigrationists. It was released on November 11, 2011 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and internationally three days later.

Daughtry - Poker Face

Chris Daughtry made a cover of the popular Lady Gaga song. Enjoy. :)

 

R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)

The original "Ignition" was originally going to be one of the songs on R. Kelly's forthcoming album at that time called Loveland; the album got leaked later on, and Kelly decided to turn Loveland to Chocolate Factory, record mostly new songs and remix some of the songs on that album. "Ignition" was one of the songs he decided to remix after people in the studio liked the end part of the song, which would later become the intro to the remix.

REO Speedwagon - Only The Strong Survive

The band was named after a fire engine. The Name "REO Speedwagon" Refers to Ransom Earl Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile. The Speedwagon was one of the Models prior to Oldsmobile. 

R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts

Most of this song was written by R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry. This is an anti-suicide song. Berry wanted to reach out to people who felt they had no hope. He quit the band in 1997 shortly before recording their album Up. After that album, the band almost broke up, but decided to continue as a trio. Berry became a farmer.

 

 

R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People

Michael Stipe calls this "A really fruity, kind of bubblegum song." In an interview with The Quietus, he said that he was a bit embarrassed when it became a big hit, but it's an important song because it shows a different side of him. Said Stipe: "Many people's idea of R.E.M, and me in particular, is very serious, with me being a very serious kind of poet. But I'm also actually quite funny - hey, my bandmates think so, my family thinks so, my boyfriend thinks so, so I must be - but that doesn't always come through in the music! People have this idea of who I am probably because when I talk on camera, I'm working so hard to articulate my thoughts that I come across as very intense."

Queen - Another One Bites The Dust

John Deacon claimed in a 1980 interview that Roger Taylor opposed the song's drum beat. This is backed up by the comments of several figures in the Days of our Lives documentary, who noted that Taylor hated having tape put on his drums to deaden the sound.

However, the drummer denied this in an interview with Mojo magazine October 2008. He insisted: "I'd already had an ineffectual pop at that kind of music with 'Fun It,' on the Jazz album. I was never against 'Another One Bites The Dust,' but I was against releasing it as a single."

Queen - I Want To Break Free

The video for this song parodies a popular British television soap, Coronation Street. The opening sequence features all the band members in drag (Mercury as a housewife, Deacon as grandmother, Taylor as a schoolgirl, and May as a housewife). This confused many people who didn't catch the reference. Brian May was asked in an interview with Q magazine March 2011 whether each band member's character in the video was an accurate reflection of their personalities? He replied: "Of Course! Everybody thinks that was Freddie's idea because it looks like something that he would love to do but it actually came from Roger's girlfriend at the time, strangely enough. It was her idea to pastiche the Coronation Street women."

Queen - We Will Rock You

Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this, and claimed the idea for the song came in a dream. He told Mojo magazine October 2008 that he wanted to "create a song that the audience could participate in."

In the Days of Our Lives documentary, he remembered a gig where the crowd chanted the Liverpool Football Club anthem, "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the band as they left the stage. "I went to bed thinking, 'What could you ask them to do?' They're all squeezed in there, but they can clap their hands, they can stamp their feet, and they can sing," he noted. "In the morning I woke up and had the idea in my head for 'We Will Rock You."

Open Stage - Kalinka kaland

This is a fun song from a Hungarian parody band.

Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

This is about the Spanish civil war, and the idealism of people from around the world who volunteered to join the International Brigade Franco's fascist army, hence the line, "So if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists."
The title of the song comes from a republican propaganda poster of that time. On it, under a formation of Nationalist bombers, a killed child can be seen. The slogan of the poster is "If you tolerate this your children will be next." 

Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life

James Dean Bradfield revealed to the NME that the band nearly split after Manic guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared in 1995, adding that the remaining Manics technically weren't together for six months that year. Explaining how they came back together, he recalled: "I was living in London and [Nicky] sent me some lyrics in the post. Two [sets] arrived; one was called 'Pure Motive' and one was called 'A Design For Life.' They both had a hint of violence and reaffirmation about them, what working class attitudes should have. And then I atomized the two sets of lyrics and wrote some music to it, which came really easily. I rang him up and said, 'I found the song that will give us reason to exist as a band!'"

Magna Cum Laude - Ugorj

Another Hungarian song. Enjoy.

The Limousines - Internet Killed The Video Star

Eric Victorino, who handles vocals and songwriting in the band, said: "The song is about how music changes, electro and pop music give way to rock n roll and back again, it's a cycle - the big lesson though is that you gotta have fun. We knew when we were recording this one that it was going to end up being the catchiest tune on the album, the lyrics came out quick and they're kind of like a sequel to the Buggles song."

Lou Reed And Metallica - Brandenburg Gate

This is the first song on Lulu, a collaborative album between rock singer-songwriter Lou Reed and heavy metal band Metallica. The album is the final full-length studio recording project that Reed was involved in before his death in 2013.

Kiscsillag - Sirály

Enjoy this great hungarian alternative ballad.

Papa Roach - Burn

Frontman Jacoby Shaddix told Rock AAA that this song is a one-fingered salute to their former record label, Geffen/Interscope, with whom the band had a major falling out. Said the frontman: "There's a lot of two-faced s--t in this business. Geffen/Interscope pissed me off – it was a really bad ending with them.
They released a greatest hits record against our will. We told them we didn't want to do it because we were at completely the wrong point in our career. They owe us a good chunk of money and they don't want to give it to us. We're like, 'F--k you, we're done.'"

Hinder - Lips Of An Angel

Sometimes inspiration for songs comes quickly. Hinder singer Austin Winkler wrote this song in just 20 or 30 minutes with drummer Cody Hanson while the two sat in Hanson's living room. Winkler came in with the first line - "Honey, why you calling me so late?" - And the rest of the song just flowed out naturally.

The story in the song about having trouble letting go of a former love is real - it's what Winkler was going through with an ex-girlfriend. He told the story to Hanson, who already had a guitar progression in mind, and the two finished the song very quickly.

Everclear - Everything To Everyone

Lead singer Art Alexakis says, "It's kind of an angry song. That person is within everybody, I think everybody has this ability to try and be everything to everyone, to try to please. I think there are 2 aspects of it - there's the pleaser, who doesn't always show his true self, always plays nice and as time goes on shows more and more of himself, but there's also the people who are everything to everyone who are manipulators and users." Art has encountered many of these people in the entertainment industry. 

Disturbed - God Of The Mind

This is a b-side from the Sickness single. It is also present on the Lost Children compilation album. The title comes from the band calling the songs "their children", because they can't pick a favorite. The Lost Children features all of Disturbed's b-side tracks that were recorded during a time period of 11 year.

Bonanza Banzai - Induljon a banzáj

Bonanza Banzai formed in 1987 in Budapest, Hungary following the new wave and the Depeche Mode trend, it became one of the most popular Hungarian synth-pop band. The band members started playing music in the university. This is one of their biggest hits from 1989.

Coldplay - Paradise

The song finds Martin singing of a young girl's dashed hopes and dreams of paradise. The Coldplay frontman told Billboard magazine that Mylo Xyloto is a concept album, which is, "loosely a kind of romance in an oppressive environment." This song appears be some sort of sequel to the previous single, "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall," whose title is even included in "Paradise"'s lyrics.

Chris De Burgh - The Living Years

A great cover of one of the best songs from Mike And The Mechanics.
This song is written from the perspective of a son who has a conflicted relationship with his father. After his father dies, he discovers that he and his dad had a much stronger bond than he ever realized, and the son regrets not saying more while his dad was alive.

Carolina Liar - Drown

Singer/guitarist Chad Wolf told Alternative Addiction how this Max Martin produced tune came about: "The crazy thing with that song is it kind of came along and developed over time. Max discovered it and kept us working on the track," he explained. "It developed out of this idea that sometimes you just have to throw yourself into something completely and kind of drown in it to create something new. Basically what that song became was the theme of the whole record. That idea began to permeate every single thing that we did. It became the red thread for every track on the album."

 

The Kevin Adamson-directed music video finds the band drowned in paint as they perform the song. Wolf told AOL Music the clip was an enjoyable shoot. Said the frontman: "Believe it or not that was so much fun for everyone. It really didn't take too long - it was two hours at the most - and it was all shot at three times the speed of the song so we could create some slow motion. From the confetti and the paint, I would say it took a week to get all of that out!"

 

 

Ben Folds - The Luckiest

This song was originally written for the 2000 movie Loser, directed by Amy Heckerling. It was deleted from the movie along with the scene it was written for, making its way that year onto the album Rockin' the Suburbs.

Vincze Lilla & Kiki - Júlia nem akar a földön járni

This is a song from 1988, a collaboration of two of the main popstars at that time in Hungary.
Julia doesn't want to walk the earth.

KFT - Balatoni nyár

Another song from KFT, this is a sentimental one. The lyrics are about memories of the summer spent with a girl at Lake Balaton.

Ash - Girl From Mars

Two different videos exists for this song. The first, the UK promo video, was directed by Peter Christopherson and is described by the band as a "cross between 'Give It Away' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the 'Natrel Plus' TV ad". The band (especially drummer Rick McMurray) hated the video so much that when the time came to release the song in America, they re-filmed it. Directed by Jesse Peretz (who also directed Foo Fighters's "Big Me" video), the video sees Ash playing the song as part of an art exhibition, and mesmerizing a small girl watching the band. 
Below you can see the much hated version. :)

Angels And Airwaves - Surrender

Another awesome song from the Love album.

 

Angels And Airwaves - Epic Holiday

A great song from the third studio album of Angels And Airwaves.

KFT - Afrika

KFT was founded in 1981 in Hungary. KFT (Korlátolt Felelősségű Társaság - "Ltd." in English) is the first true alternative new wave band of Hungary, they had immense popularity in the '80-s, writing hit songs like Bábu vagy, Bál az Operaházban, Balatoni nyár and Afrika all became cult classics in Hungary. Their songs have a strange, abstract lyrics, thanks to lead vocalist András Laár and keyboardist Tibor Bornai. Afrika is one of the most popular hungarian songs ever in karaoke bars.

U2 - One

The band wrote this song in Berlin after toiling there for months trying to record Achtung Baby. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, so the band was hoping to find inspiration from the struggle and change that was coming to the region. Instead, they found themselves at odds with each other and unable to do much productive work.

This song came suddenly - the bones of it written in about 30 minutes by most accounts, and it rejuvenated the band creatively. When they left Berlin, they had little to show for it except for this song, but they were able to complete the album back home in Ireland with this song as the centerpiece. Says The Edge: "It was a pivotal song in the recording of the album, the first breakthrough in what was an extremely difficult set of sessions."

Volbeat - Heaven Nor Hell

Volbeat are a Danish metal band which was formed in Copenhagen. They play a fusion of rock and roll, heavy metal and rockabilly. They are inspired by classic rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, as well as modern hard rock, thrash metal, heavy metal, alternative rock and hardcore groups.

Ganxsta Zolee és a Kartel - A Jó a Rossz és a Kartel

A hungarian gangsta rap song from the '90s. :)

Pulp - The Fear

"The Fear" was released as a promo-only CD single in the US in 1998. The single features the 4:29 radio edit and a 0:10 research hook. There was never a commercial single release for the song.
This is the opening track of This Is Hardcore album. 

Pulp - Sunrise

Jarvis Cocker has a simple summary of what he was going for in the lyrics: "They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn, don't they? I don't know if it's true, but they say it. I always hate it when you've been at an all-night party and then suddenly the sun starts coming up and you think, 'Why didn't I go home an hour ago?' You feel unnatural because every other creature's just waking up and the birds start doing the dawn chorus and you feel out of step with nature. So on a simple level the song's just about trying to react to the sunrise in a better way and not to screw things up for yourself."

 

Pulp - A Little Soul

This song had a strange release and shelf life, with the B-sides on the single release (which charted at #22 in the UK upon release in June 1998) seeming to have much more longevity and use than the original song. "Like A Friend" was used on the soundtrack to the 1998 film Great Expectations, with several music videos produced to promote it, as well as in the TV shows The Venture Bros and Daria. "Cocaine Socialism" surfaced as a full release on the 2006 re-issue of the This Is Hardcore album, as a "fully recorded version" - strangely it features almost identical music to album track "Glory Days," yet completely different lyrics.

Snap! - Rhythm Is A Dancer

This song features vocals by Thea Austin. The American singer/songwriter/composer was meant to be the replacement for Snap!'s original lead vocalist Penny Ford, however after laying down the vocals for this track, she left the band. Austin later was lead vocalist on Soulsearcher's UK 1999 Top 10 hit "Can't Get Enough" and Pusaka's 2001 dance club chart topper "You're The Worst Thing For Me."

Buddy Holly - Everyday

This song is listed as being written by Charles Hardin and Norman Petty. Charles Hardin is actually Buddy Holly: his real name was Charles Hardin Holley.
This was used in the movies Big Fish and Stand By Me as well as a Season 4 episode of the TV show Lost.

The Strokes - Under Cover Of Darkness

Frontman Julian Casablancas explained the song's meaning to NME: "I guess it's about someone who works in the military and has a girlfriend. It's cheesy, I guess, but it's about having to leave a loved one behind."

Casablancas admitted that Clarence Clemons' 1985 duet with Jackson Browne, "You're A Friend Of Mine," was an inspiration for this song. He said: "I weirdly like the bridge and the chorus of that Clarence Clemons song. So that was the vibe we were going for" He then sheepishly added, "I shouldn't confess to these things!"

 

 

Adele - Someone Like You

The song was written quickly by Adele on her acoustic guitar, in the wake of her 18-month relationship with the 30-year-old man whom she believed was The One. "We were so intense I thought we would get married, " she told Q magazine. "But that was something he never wanted."

A few months after they split, he was engaged to someone else, "so when I found out that he does want that (marriage) with someone else, it was just the horrible-est feeling ever," she continued. "But after I wrote it, I felt more at peace. It set me free. I'm wiser in my songs. My words are always what I can never say (in real life). But I didn't think it would resonate…with the world! I'm never gonna write a song like that again. I think that's the song I'll be known for."

 

Skillet - It's Not Me, It's You

Vocalist and bassist John Cooper said: "This is definitely an angry song, but it's also tongue in cheek. So many times this is something you say during a break up, but it could also apply to an authority figure or a parent who treats you bad. Even when people weigh us down, we can turn to Christ and find ourselves empowered by putting our hope in Him instead of letting someone who's giving you a hard time wear you down."

Seether - Tonight

Recorded in the band's last couple days in the studio, this track almost didn't make it on to Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray album, but eventually was chosen as the follow up to the lead single "Country Song." Frontman Shaun Morgan said of the track, "I think ['Tonight'] captures and summarizes the hopeful sentiment of the album."

The Tea Party - The River

The Tea Party is a Canadian rock band with blues, progressive rock, Indian and Middle Eastern influences, dubbed "Moroccan roll" by the media. Active throughout the 1990s and up until 2005, the band re-formed in 2011. The Tea Party released eight albums on EMI Music Canada, selling 1.6 million records worldwide, and achieving a No. 1 Canadian single "Heaven Coming Down" in 1999.
This is their first single, released in 1993.

The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

The line "I hope we don't hear Marley's Chains we forged in life" is a reference to the ghost of Jacob Marley from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This is one of many quotes and references from novels, films and songs on The '59 Sound. Singer guitarist Brian Fallon explained to Jam! Music: "I look at our music as a soundtrack and I look at the lyrics like a movie script. And I try and write them so that people are watching the images go by in their head as they're hearing the lyrics. And when I reference another song it's because it's playing during a scene in that movie. At least, that's how I see it in my head."

The 'sound' of the title refers not only to vintage rock, but also to Fallon's self-built 1959 Fender Bassman amp.

 

The Airborne Toxic Event - Changing

The song was originally titled "Something You Own."

The song finds the band breaking musical barriers with some elementary percussion on the third verse. "When we first recorded the song 'Changing,' we had decided to cut the drums on the third verse and just clap and stomp instead. So we all got in a room at [producer] Dave Sardy's studio and did just that," frontman Mikel Jollett told Spinner. "Hit record, clap and stomp -- which wasn't something we were used to as a rock 'n' roll band."

 

 

The Livin End - End Of The World

This song appears on the soundtrack to Tony Hawk's Underground 2, it still one of the most popular songs from the Modern Artillery album.

The Horrible Crowes - Behold The Hurricane

The Horrible Crowes are a side project formed by Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon with his guitar Tech, Ian Perkins. Fallon explained on his blog, "The name comes from a poem called the Twa Corbies, which means, 'two crows.' Check it out, it's a dark commentary on life." This was the first single released by the band and it was made available for streaming through RollingStone.com on July 13, 2011.

Sum 41 - Screaming Bloody Murder

Frontman Deryck Whibley went through a rough patch during the writing of Screaming Bloody Murder, starting in 2009 with his wife of three years, Avril Lavigne, filing for divorce. The Canadian singer told MTV News that after coming through the other side, he found a happiness he's never known before: "I wrote a lot of these songs in a dark period, because, going through the divorce period was a very hard, dark time," he said. "And what I realized, I guess, is, when you're going through something — whether it's a death in the family, a divorce, something that's very unexpected and painful — you go super, super low, and then when you can come out of it, what you thought was your highest point becomes even higher. And that's where I'm at now, and that's where I was at making the record. When I was writing it, it was in the low period, and now I'm at a highest point that I didn't know existed."

Switchfoot - Dark Horses

Writing for The Huffington Post was an interesting transition for Foreman. Speaking about how it relates to his songwriting, Foreman said: "It's really hard to fit a complex idea into a 3-minute pop song. And when you're dealing with issues that you're passionate about, usually they have various levels. And within a poem, you can get around the issue of space, and in a song the same way, by simply leaving holes and alluding to what you're talking about. And there's all sorts of ways to do it. With an essay, you actually have to be a little bit more forthcoming and prove what you're trying to say. So to that end, the song can be a little bit more of the mystery and leave the whole thing open ended. But there's something really gratifying, as well, about saying exactly what you mean. And I've really enjoyed those essays for that reason."

Staind - Not Again

Relationships within the band were at their lowest ebb during the recording of Staind. Things deteriorated to the extent that singer Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok were barely speaking to one another and longtime drummer Jon Wysocki departed from the band following the recording process in May 2011. Lewis told Audio Ink Radio this track reflected the difficult process of laying down the album. He said: "It all manifested itself through the song - the duress and struggle that it was to make this record."

Snow Patrol - Called Out In The Dark

This is the lead single by alternative rock group Snow Patrol, from their sixth studio album. The song was written by the band's frontman Gary Lightbody, and produced by Jacknife Lee, who has worked on their previous three sets. It was recorded in Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles. The single premiered on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show on July 21, 2011 and was released on September 2, 2011.
This song, along with other tracks on Fallen Empires, finds Snow Patrol venturing into dance territory. Lightbody told The Sun: "I've always DJed and dance music has always been a big part of our lives, but it's never really been part of the music. So we just let go a little bit this time."

Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla

This was issued as a single in the UK after becoming ubiquitous on BBC in late Spring 2006. It was used as the background music for the trailers for Sir David Attenborough's natural history series, Planet Earth, for the closing credits of the BBC's coverage of the 2006 FA Cup final, and to promote their coverage of the 2006 soccer World Cup.

Some of lyrics are in Icelandic and some in Hopelandish, the language invented by the band's songwriter, Jon 'Jonsi' Birgisson.

 

 

Santana - Smooth

Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty sang lead on this, but when he was writing it he thought they were going to use someone else. He and Shur would try to figure out who they would get to sing it, but then Arista contacted Thomas and asked him to do it.

Many of the lyrics are Thomas' ode to his wife, who is Puerto Rican ("My Mu Equita" translates to "My Little Doll" in Spanish). She ended up in the video.

 

 

Seether - Country Song

The song got it's title from its swampy verse riff. Frontman Shaun Morgan explained the track's meaning in a Seether newsletter: "In some ways I guess I was dealing with growing up and having to make better life choices. It's definitely not Country, but we recorded the album in Nashville, and felt like it was a small homage to such a wonderful city."

Ryan Adams - Lucky Now

The song's reflective lyrics of a bleak reality while never giving up hope is based on Adams' time in New York in his 20s. The track was originally written about Chris Feinstein, who played bass guitar for Ryan Adams & The Cardinals between 2007 and 2009. On December 15, 2009, he was found dead in his New York City apartment. Speaking to BBC 6 Music, Adams explained: "The first version was called 'Chris.' I was trying to write a song for my friend and former bandmate who passed away. The song I wrote was too direct, and I realised that there needed to be more self-reflection. I needed to make this feeling relatable to others, so that it could be relatable back to myself. In some strange way, it needed to be more altruistic, by being more first-person. It's a very strange concept, but when I listen to songs, I need to feel the narrator's shoes rubbing against my feet, you know? I needed to put myself in that place."
The version that appears on Ashes & Fire is the revised second draft. 

Queen - One Vision

Queen was inspired to write this by their Live Aid appearance in 1985 - millions of people sharing one vision of a better world.

When the band was approached to perform at Live Aid, they were in a rut and reticent to appear. But after their show-stopping performance, they re-entered the studio with renewed energy. They were back in Munich (a place they had previously hit trouble during the Hot Space sessions), but this time spent a lot of time working in the studio, not being distracted by drugs or other distractions - unlike the earlier sessions.

Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever

Queen was commissioned to write this for the movie Highlander, and Brian May wrote it after watching the first cut of the film. He wrote the line "Who wants to live forever" in a cab on his way home from the viewing of the film. Inspiration came from the scene where Connor Macleod (Christopher Lambert) takes his dying wife Heather (Biettie Edney) in his arms at the time of her death. This is also the scene where the song is played.

In the film, Freddie Mercury sings the first verse, but on the album, Brian May sings the first verse and Freddie sings the rest.

 

 

Metallica - 2x4

Great song from the Load album.

 

Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness

This slice of bitter angst originated when producer Steve Brown spliced together two early Manic songs "Go Buzz Baby Go"(with which it shares the chord structure and the phrase "Motorcycle Emptiness") and "Behave Yourself Baby." James Dean Bradfield then transformed the hybrid with a guitar figure that came to him in a dream.

Nicky Wire and Richey Edwards' lyrics were inspired by S.E. Hinton's novel about biker gangs, Rumble Fish. They attack the false idols of teen pop culture and the hollowness of the Western consumer lifestyle. "A six minute song about alienation and despair," was how Wire described the song's message to BBC Wales.
Some of the words were taken from the poem Neon Lonliness by Wire's poet brother, Patrick Jones.

 

 

Saliva - Badass

The band wrote this song with their producer Bobby Huff, who came up with the idea during their first songwriting sesson. "Bobby Huff had an idea for where he wanted the song to go, and he had a rough idea for the chorus," Saliva guitarist Wayne Swinny said: "We sat down in the studio; I had a guitar, and he had his phone with his little ideas that he hummed into it, and we put together a song really quick and easy."
"It was meant to be one of those 'sports anthem kind of songs,'" Swinny continued. "A lot of our songs, whether they were intended that way or not - most of them weren't - they just lend themselves to sporting events."

Ray Davies and Jackson Browne - Waterloo Sunset

Written by Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, he called this "a romantic, lyrical song about my older sister's generation."
Waterloo Bridge is in London, and the lyrics are about a guy looking out of a window at two lovers meeting at Waterloo Station. Davies used to cross Waterloo Bridge every day when he was a student at Croydon Art School.

Ray Davies brought this to the band while they were in the middle of recording the album. He was reluctant to share the lyrics because they were so personal. In a Rolling Stone magazine interview, his brother (and Kinks guitarist) Dave Davies said Ray felt "it was like an extract from a diary nobody was allowed to read."

 

 

Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

This song is a male-female duet between the Cardigans' Nina Persson and the Manics' James Dean Bradfield.
Bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire told Q magazine June 2009 that this song is about "suicide and connections with people who are gone."

Jack's Mannequin - My Racing Thoughts

It was this song which led to the theme running throughout the record. Said McMahon: "Marriage is a bit of a beast to tackle in a pop record but when I wrote 'My Racing Thoughts,' it became clear how powerful and loaded a subject this kind of love is and somewhere in that moment I began to lock into the broad concept for the writing sessions to come." The song was released as a single on August 2, 2011.

Radiohead - Lotus Flower

The King of Limbs is the eighth studio album by English alternative rock band Radiohead. Produced by Nigel Godrich, it was initially released as a download in MP3 and WAV formats, followed by a physical CD a month later. "Lotus Flower" was chosen by the group as the first single from the album. It was made available on February 18, 2011 when Radiohead's official blog published the song with an accompanying video, followed by a post announcing the release of the album.

Pulp - Do You Remember The First Time?

To promote the single, Jarvis Cocker put together a collection of interviews with celebrities recounting their "first times." The resulting 25-minute film features the likes of John Peel, Jo Brand, Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer, Alison Steadman, Viv Stanshall and Justine Frischman of Elastica revealing their losses of virginity. Fun Boy Terry Hall has perhaps the best line: "She was into the Bay City Rollers, which put me off a bit. But not enough."
Whilst not necessarily the band's breakthrough single, Jarvis Cocker has described "Do You Remember The First Time?" as "the day modern-day Pulp was born."
This was where the signature sound of the band came together after the many years of experimentation and lineup changes that had proceeded.

Halász Judit - Az én apukám

Judit Halász is a very popular actress and singer with several high-ranking honours. She is the Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF in Hungary.
This is a great song for children from her, called "My Daddy".

Guns N' Roses - Knockin' On Heaven's Door

This song is written from the perspective of a dying sheriff: "Mama, take this badge off of me/I can't use it anymore/It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see/I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door." Bob Dylan wrote it for the 1973 western film, Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. It plays while Sheriff Colin Baker is dying from his gunshot wounds. Dylan cameos in the movie as the character, Alias.
Guns N' Roses covered this on their 1991 album, Use Your Illusion II. They played it in 1992 at a tribute concert for Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, who had died of AIDS. 72,000 people attended the concert, which was held in London's Wembley Stadium. 

Pulp - Underwear

Pulp are somewhat of an anomaly in modern pop music - it took them a very long time, over 15 years, to really break through and become successful as a band. Having gone through many lineup changes since starting as a university project from frontman Jarvis Cocker in 1978, it was only in the early to mid-1990s that the band finally hit huge commercial success as part of the vanguard of the Britpop movement.

Initially the band started as a project from a 15-year-old Cocker and his friend Peter Dalton, and the name Pulp (taken from a Michael Caine film of the same name) was originally shot down for being too short. At first the band were known as Arabicus - a deliberate misspelling of the Arabicas coffee beans, which Cocker found listed in the Financial Times commodity index. Eventually the name evolved to Arabicus Pulp, then simply Pulp as the name initially dismissed as being too short eventually stuck.

 

 

Guns N' Roses - November Rain

The lyrics and the video are based on a short story by Del James called Without You. The story is part of a collection called The Language Of Fear, which was brought back to market in 2008 after being out of print. The new version of the book contains an intro by Axl Rose, who wrote: "Del James has a personal knowledge of most of the situations he writes about, and has a love of the gutter from having been there." James contributed lyrics to two Guns N' Roses songs: "The Garden" and "Yesterdays," and has directed several music videos.

Chris Isaak - Oh, Pretty Woman

This is a Roy Orbison cover from Chris Isaak. This was Orbison's last big hit. His career faded fast, but was revived in the '80s when prominent musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and George Harrison cited him as an influence and invited him to join various projects. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined The Traveling Wilburys with Dylan, Tom Petty, Harrison and Jeff Lynne. As he was enjoying this career revival, he died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988 at age 52.

Goo Goo Dolls - Name

Lead singer John Rzeznik wrote this about his childhood. He sings it to his sisters who raised him; both his parents died when he was young and his father was an alcoholic. The line, "We're grown up orphans who never knew their names" reflects his past

This was the Goo Goo Dolls' first hit. They had released four albums by then and had a large following in upstate New York, but this brought them national fame.

 

 

Chris Isaak - Can't Help Falling In Love

Chris Isaak made a great cover of this awesome love song by Elvis Presley. This song was featured in the 1961 Elvis movie Blue Hawaii. It was written by the songwriter George Weiss, who claimed that neither the movie producers nor Elvis' associates liked the song demo, but Elvis insisted on recording this song for the movie. Weiss, who died in 2010 at age 89, was a military bandleader in World War II.

Bush - The Sound Of Winter

Frontman Gavin Rossdale told Spinner UK about the inspiration for the song: "I think just everyday dark clouds, dark clouds on the horizon. A look. A word. A gesture that can set the train careening off the track. That's what that is on the lyrical side. With the record I was trying to find a balance between Bush's people and also putting a new progression in there. With that song, it was strange because when I started playing the music to it, it all felt very comfortable. It seemed to be a very natural display of something more traditional in my arsenal. That's how that came about and the lyric just fit with that."

Bródy János - Édes életünk

Another hungarian song, a bittersweet piece from János Bródy, titled "Our sweet life".

Brett Anderson

This is the first single from Black Rainbows, the fourth solo album by the English singer-songwriter Brett Anderson, released on 26 September 2011.
Anderson has stated that Black Rainbows will be "restless, noisy and dynamic." and described it as a return to the rock band format.

Blue October - The Feel Again (Stay)

The Any Man in America album chronicles the dissolution of vocalist Justin Furstenfeld's marriage and separation from his daughter. The singer explained: "I decided to document everything. If I messed up along the way, I'd tell that too. I called the album my 'Audio Journal' as I was writing. I didn't want the music to just be about me though. I wanted it to help other fathers in America who might be going through the same thing."

 

The video for this song directed by Merritt Fields was posted by Blue October on June 9, 2011 on YouTube. Due to the overwhelming positive response to the clip by fans, the band released the song on iTunes five days later just in time for Father's Day.

 

 

Pulp - Your Sister's Clothes

This was one of four songs featured on The Sisters EP, released in May 1994 as the final single release off of the album His 'N' Hers, and it featured the lead single "Babies" and three songs that missed the cut off the original album: the present song, "Seconds" and title track "His 'n' Hers." Its position of #19 in the UK Singles Chart was at the time the band's highest charting, before it was blown out of the water by the various singles off follow-up album Different Class.

 

"Your Sister's Clothes" is actually a sequel to "Babies," with the younger sister from the first song (whom the narrator would spy on whilst she had sex and went out with her elder sister) gaining revenge for the events of that song four years later by stealing/wearing her sister's clothes (hence the title).

 

 

Blink-182 - After Midnight

Much like their hit single "I Miss You," the lyrics were handled by both Hoppus and DeLonge. "Tom and I divided the responsibility of writing the lyrics — Tom did the verses and I did the chorus — and we didn't necessarily know what the other was writing about, but it fit together pretty well," Hoppus explained to MTV News.

DeLonge threw in some lyrical references to "I Miss You" in his verses. He explained to MTV News: "I threw in a little homage to 'I Miss You,' because, specifically on this song, I remember Travis saying that we should have something in the category of 'I Miss You' [on this album], and that's when he showed us the beat. So when we wrote that, I remember that was in my mind."

 

 

Barenaked Ladies - One Week

The reason why many of the lyrics are just a hotchpotch of cultural references is that the song was written as a freestyle. Singer-guitarist Ed Robertson explained to Billboard magazine: "I wrote the chorus structure of the song, but I couldn't figure out the verses at all. I got together with [singer] Steve [Page] a bunch of times and said 'I have this idea for a song, and I couldn't figure out where to go with it.' And finally Steve said to me at some point, 'Just freestyle it! Just do what you do onstage every night. It's gonna be great.'"

"There were some extra verses and stuff," he added. "I just culled it down to what I thought were my favorite lines. But it was written as a freestyle."

Fittingly, this song spent one week at #1 in the US.