The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

The song 'Hungry Heart' was written for punk icons the Ramones

After seeing the groundbreaking punk band in Asbury Park, Springsteen went home to write them a song. When his manager, Jon Landau, heard "Hungry Heart," he told Springsteen he couldn't give it away, especially after seeing the success of "Because the Night," another Springsteen composition that became a massive hit for Patti Smith.

Stephen King is drawn to horror's childish power

This 1986 appearance promoting King's directorial debut finds him reflecting on what makes horror, which he says is its ability to strip away pretense, reducing supposedly sophisticated people to terrified children. He also seems to have already soured on the movie business, calling filmmaking "a primitive way to create," a not-so-subtle dig at Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining," which notoriously disappointed King.

The Ramones' debut album went gold 38 years after it was released

The 1976 album from the influential New York band featured classic tracks like “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “Beat on the Brat.” That didn’t translate to sales, though, at least not for many decades: The album didn’t sell more than 500,000 copies (earning gold certification) until 2014.

Death, early innovators of punk, were unknown for decades

The band of three brothers from Detroit recorded a 1974 demo that predicted the punk explosion that would arrive just a few years later with the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. But the band, Death, were complete unknowns until collectors rediscovered their music in the 2000s.

After surging in popularity, King began using a pseudonym

King was a rarity in the '70s: a genre writer with a vast mainstream audience. He was so popular, in fact, that he began releasing books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, a ploy that allowed him to write outside the horror genre without attracting the displeasure of his massive fan base.

King sets many of his stories in Maine

In the process, he has created a few fictional towns. This extensive travelogue by a superfan explores the writer's favorite haunts, pinpointing specific details from and inspirations for King's fiction. Helpfully, it also provides plenty of photos, allowing you to venture through King's haunted version of the state without ever leaving the comfort of your home.

'Dracula' was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare

Bram Stoker, the author of the classic horror novel, said that a dinner of "dressed crab" led to unsettling dreams about "a vampire king rising from the tomb." He'd revisit that vision, eventually creating the iconic titular vampire.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Joan Didion interviewed The Grateful Dead in 1967, before they became music icons.

Dickens' pet inspired Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'

Dickens had a pet raven named Grip and made him a character in the novel "Barnaby Rudge: a Tale of the Riots of Eighty." Poe reviewed the work and suggested the raven should play a bigger role. A few years later, he fixed the problem himself when he wrote his most famous poem, "The Raven." The bird is preserved at the Free Library Philadelphia.

Brian Wilson originally wrote the Beach Boys' classic 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Punk band Devo formed after witnessing the Kent State shootings

Band members Jerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh were students at the Ohio university when the National Guard shot and killed student protestors. Casale said that the experience led them to pursue the project, which was a satirical critique of mindless consumerism and conformity.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Daniel Johnston's home recordings have inspired countless rock legends

The singer-songwriter self-released cassettes in the early '80s that were not fit for the radio—their sound quality was poor, and the songs were often little more than an organ and Johnston's high-pitched voice, singing about things like Casper the Friendly Ghost. The tapes eventually found their way to alternative tastemakers, who lauded the songs' brilliance and inspired a cult following that has admired Johnston's music for decades.

Before he was a famous novelist, John Steinbeck wrote a werewolf murder mystery.

Band names often fit into 'semantic spaces'

Linguist Chi Luu explains that we often understand and identify with band names, even if they're odd (or nonsensical) word combinations, based on their associations with other words. For example, bands that begin with "The" often nod to 1960s garage rock; heavy metal bands often rely on morbid or funereal words.

Raymond Pettibon designed Black Flag's iconic logo

Pettibon’s brother, Greg Ginn, was the guitarist for a new band in search of a logo. Pettibon delivered an image that would become one of the defining icons of punk: four black bars, meant to symbolize a waving flag.

A fun analysis of Radiohead's depressive song 'Creep'

Radiohead is a highly acclaimed English rock band founded in 1985. The band has sold more than 30 million albums, and their nine full-length albums are critically appreciated. This episode of One Song goes deep into the band's very first single and by far most-listened-to hit: "Creep," a slacker anthem filled with self-loathing and anxiety. Learn the details of the hit indie song here.

The Clash's 'London Calling' cover parodied Elvis

The English band used Presley’s 1959 debut album as the template for the cover of its third record, an ambitious double album that explored rockabilly, reggae, ska, R&B, jazz and pop.

Basquiat produced an early hip-hop classic

The 1983 track “Beat Bop” features emcees Rammellzee and K-Rob rapping over a beat produced and arranged by Basquiat. Though it leans into several tropes from the early days of hip-hop, it’s also singular, with elements of dub, funk, and disco blending over its 10 minutes.

Liza Minnelli collaborated with My Chemical Romance on their album 'The Black Parade'

Featured on the song "Mama," Minnelli provided vocals for the emo rock group. The band's frontman explained that they wanted someone "motherly" and tough with a theatrical background.

Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle' was inspired by the bombing of Hiroshima

The writer fought in World War II and witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, which he recounted in 1969's satirical "Slaughterhouse Five." Six years earlier, though, he wrote about the bombing of Hiroshima in "Cat's Cradle," channeling some of the horror he witnessed in Dresden to write about the dropping of the atomic bomb. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is a Deadhead

For the uninitiated, that means Powell is an avid fan of the band The Grateful Dead. Powell is also a musician, cyclist, and dog park kerfuffle survivor.

The cult of 'Rocky Horror' has its own rituals

The movie was initially a commercial failure, but it began amassing a loyal following through midnight showings, where audience members dressed as their favorite characters and acted out scenes from the movie in the aisles—a tradition that continues to this day.

Interred Japanese Americans wrote satirical poetry

Senryu is a Japanese poetic form that is similar to the haiku, though its aim is often satirical and its composition is often collaborative. At California’s Tule Lake Segregation Center, interred citizens met to write senryu together, often composing verse that criticized their surroundings.

Spinal Tap began as a sketch on a short-lived TV show

The fake band might be best known for "This is Spinal Tap," 1984 movie that effectively created the comedy mockumentary, but the premise began with an appearance on a short-lived ABC show called "The TV Show."

The animatronic shark from 'Jaws' was a complex machine called 'Bruce'

Affectionately named after Spielberg's lawyer, the elaborate underwater apparatus used to portray the shark in the film was constructed by Robert A. Mattey. He had previously constructed a giant squid for "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," a film Spielberg loved as a child.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.