Top 10 Songs Inspired by Newspaper or Magazine Articles
It was inspired by a futuristic short story published in Road and Track magazine ("A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard Foster, 1973)
Steven Tyler read a Newsweek article about gunshot victims and connected the song lyrics with the theme of child abuse and incest. Tyler said "I got really angry that nobody was paying homage to those who were abused by Mom and Dad".
The song (and album) title were inspired by environmental concerns about the future of the planet and suggested by drummer Nick Menza, who had read a story in Time magazine entitled "The Countdown to Extinction".
The lyrics were inspired after lead singer Philip Oakey read a photo-story in a teen-girl's magazine.
Lyrics were inspired by a newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window
Iggy Pop said that the title was derived from a column heading in a Time article about the Vietnam War.
It was inspired by an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car that songwriter Mike Reid had read.
The judge asked the man if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't."
Neil Diamond was inspired by a magazine cover photo of Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's daughter, as a young child on a horse with her parents in the background.
Caroline was 10-11 years old at the time.
John Lennon said that it was inspired by a newspaper story about "a miser who concealed his cash wherever he could in order to prevent people from forcing him to spend it. On reflection, Lennon did not think highly of the composition, dismissing it in Anthology as "a bit of crap I wrote in India." (wiki)