Janis Ian was 14 when she wrote her 1967 hit single “Society’s Child,” a controversial song about how social pressure doomed an interracial romance. “I was sitting on a bus in East Orange, NJ, where I was living with my parents, and I saw it happening around me,” Ian told Songwriter Universe.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Keith Carradine wrote and performed “I’m Easy” for the 1975 Robert Altman film Nashville. Carradine, as womanizing musician Tom Frank, performs the song to an audience of past, present, and possibly future lovers.

It was 1956. Drummer Tom Austin and keyboardist Bob Gaudio were talented New Jersey teenagers who recruited guitarist Billy Dalton and saxophonist Billy Crandall to form a band, the Royals. Austin and Gaudio teamed to write “Short Shorts,” a number three hit in 1958 for the newly named Royal Teens.

Guitarist Mick Jones wrote Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” a №1 hit in 1985. “I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” Jones recalled in Classic Rock.