The lyrics for the song are based on the poem "Fun" by Wyn Cooper. Crow's producer (Bottrell) discovered Cooper's poetry book "The Country of Here Below" in a Pasadena, California used bookstore. Crow adapted "Fun" into the lyrics for her song - earning Cooper considerable royalties, and helping to push his book, originally published in a run of only 500 copies in 1987, into multiple reprints.

The opening spoken line, "This ain't no disco", is a reference to the song "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads. When played on radio or at live performances, the line is also commonly changed to refer to the local listening area (such as "This is VA" instead of "This is LA").

Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist, performer, record producer, actress, and political activist. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country, and pop. She has released seven studio albums, two compilations, and a live album, and has contributed to various film soundtracks. She has sold over 16 million albums in the United States and 35 million albums worldwide. Additionally, Crow has garnered nine Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

It reached number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in June 1994 and remained there for six weeks before being supplanted by The Offspring's "Come Out and Play" in July. The single helped to make Dulcinea Toad the Wet Sprocket's first top 40 album on the Billboard 200.

Toad the Wet Sprocket is an American alternative rock band formed in 1986. The band consists of vocalist and guitarist Glen Phillips, guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss. The band enjoyed chart success in the 1990s with the singles "Walk on the Ocean", "All I Want", "Something's Always Wrong", and "Fall Down", among others. The band broke up in 1998 to pursue other projects but in 2006 began touring the United States as a band in small-venue, short-run tours each summer. In December 2010, the band announced their official reunion as a full-time working band and have started writing songs for their first new studio album since their 1997 Columbia Records release Coil.

The song features drummer Gerry Polci on lead vocals, with usual lead Frankie Valli singing the bridge sections and backing vocals.

The song was originally about the repeal of Prohibition with the title of "December 5th, 1933," but the lyrics were changed at the urgings of Frankie Valli and lyricist Parker. The song became a nostalgic remembrance of a young man's "first time" with a woman. In the Broadway play Jersey Boys, the song accompanied the Bob Gaudio character being set up with a prostitute by the record label, in order to lose his virginity.

In both 1988 and 1993, the song was remixed by Dutch deejay and producer Ben Liebrand and rereleased as a single. The 1993 rerelease spent 27 weeks on the Hot 100 (matching the chart life of the original 1975 single). The peak position of the 1993 remix version was #14. Adding together the two 27-week chart runs for the 1975 original single and the 1993 remix version (for a combined total of 54 weeks, two more weeks than a full year) gives the song the longest tenure ever on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart until this time. The song has now been surpassed by several other songs for this title

"Queen of the Night" is an uptempo pop rock/dance number, with Houston expressing how she "rules the club scene", proclaiming herself "queen of the night". It was not released as a single in America, but it received such substantial radio play that it rose to number 36 on the Hot 100 Airplay. However, because of Billboard magazine rules at the time (which have since been modified), a song with no commercial single available could not chart on the main Billboard Hot 100. The song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, becoming Houston's fifth number 1 dance single. It was released in several other countries, peaking at number 14 in the UK.

The music video for "Queen of the Night" is the full performance Houston gives in the motion picture The Bodyguard. In the film, the performance is interrupted by violence.

In live performances, the song's arrangement is more faithful to the CJ MacIntosh mix.

This song was covered by American Idol contestant Haley Scarnato in 2006. This song was covered during Australian singer Delta Goodrem's Believe Again Tour at various locations throughout Australia in 2009. The 2009 X Factor contestants also performed this song on Sunday, October 18, 2009 as a group performance. Contestant Stacey Solomon, who came third, performed this song on The X Factor Live Tour 2010. The independent, web-based, electronic/dubstep artist known as Futret released a remix/crossover-cover of the song in early February 2012

Each verse describes the isolation and suffering of a child, two of whom have a physical abnormality; a boy whose hair has prematurely whitened from shock and a girl covered in birthmarks. The third child is a boy whose parents take him with them to their church, where they 'shake and lurch' on the floor. His situation is said to be worse than the other children's.

An alternative version sometimes performed at live concerts replaced the third verse with one concerning a boy whose mother disposed of his tonsils after a tonsillectomy, thus depriving him of the possibility of bringing them to show and tell.

Although highly successful when it was released, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" has since been frequently included on lists of bad songs. The song was number 15 on VH1's 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever, named by Rolling Stone the "15th Most Annoying Song" and ranked at number 31 both on Blender's list of the "50 Worst Songs Ever" and, most recently, on AOL Radio's list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever (Matthew Wilkening called the song "Not only bad but amazingly monotone and depressing," and "Absolutely the last song to play for your sad friends"). In 2011, VH1 named "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" the 31st greatest one-hit wonder of the '90s.

In a 1994 essay in which he makes the case that modern life is better than life in the past, humorist P.J. O'Rourke wrote "Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes."

The track received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, which it lost to "I Swear" by All-4-One.

"Wild Night" was recorded by John Mellencamp and Meshell Ndegeocello and released as a single in 1994. This version of the song reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the summer of 1994 and remained in the Top 40 for 33 weeks. It also topped the U.S. adult contemporary chart for eight weeks. The song was included on Mellencamp's 1994 album, Dance Naked and an "acoustic" remix was released as a promotional single for radio.

The song is an up-tempo set in minor key, backed by tom-tom drums and fiddle. The narrator describes himself as a rebellious American Indian character, "Half Cherokee and Choctaw". He describes, among other things, his pursuit of a Chippewa lover.

The song contains a sample of John D. Loudermilk's song "Indian Reservation".

A dance remix of the single was also made. This remix appears on McGraw's 2010 album Number One Hits.

Deborah Evans Price, of Billboard magazine reviewed the song favorably, calling it an "incredible single" and saying that it is "positively stuffed with lyrical and musical Native American cliches, from tomtoms to wigwams to peace pipes." She goes on to say that if the song becomes a hit, "it'll set relations back 200 years." Billboard magazine in their review of the album, said that the song is "either one of the catchiest or one of the stupidest songs ever written."

The song was the No. 1 song of 1994 according to Billboard magazine's year-end charts. The song was ranked at No. 51 on The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs for the first 50 years of the Hot 100 chart.

The song has been covered by The Mountain Goats, and was also heavily featured in the fifth season finale of American Dad!, "Great Space Roaster". The song has also been covered in the TV series Full House, in which fictional band "Girl Talk", led by character Stephanie Tanner, mess up the song during the performance. The song is also played in the South Park episode "Prehistoric Ice Man."

The music video of the song features the pop group singing amidst romantic and frolic images; "The Sign" was depicted as an ankh (also known as key of life) and a djed (ancient Egyptian symbol representing stability). The music video is directed by Mathias Julin. 

Ace of Base is a pop band based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Its original lineup consisted of Ulf "Buddha" Ekberg, and three siblings, Jonas "Joker" Berggren, Malin "Linn" Berggren and Jenny Berggren. They released four studio albums between 1993 and 2002, which sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide.

Happy Nation / The Sign is one of the best-selling debut albums of all time, and was certified nine times platinum in the United States. It was the first debut album to produce three number 1 singles on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart: "All That She Wants", "The Sign" and "Don't Turn Around".

Asked if the song was about drugs (since "Mary Jane" is a common nickname for marijuana, and marijuana is said to kill pain), Heartbreaker guitarist Mike Campbell said, "In the verse there is still the thing about an Indiana girl on an Indiana night, just when it gets to the chorus he had the presence of mind to give it a deeper meaning. My take on it is it can be whatever you want it to be. A lot of people think it's a drug reference, and if that's what you want to think, it very well could be, but it could also just be a goodbye love song." In the rest of the interview, Campbell said that the song was originally titled "Indiana Girl" and the first chorus "Hey, Indiana Girl, go out and find the world." He went on to say that their producer, Rick Rubin didn't agree singing about "hey, Indiana Girl," so Rubin changed it a week later

Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff recorded a cover of the song for the 1993 movie Cool Runnings, also known in France as Rasta Rockett. It was released as a single in 1994, becoming a comeback hit for him, reaching #18 on the Billboard Hot 100.