9 Popular Songs You Didn't Know Were Based On Real News Stories

1. The Beatles - "She's Leaving Home"

It turns out that a good many of The Fab Four's song ideas were taken straight out of the headlines. "A Day in the Life" was about the death of the heir to the Guinness fortune, Tara Browne. "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" is the slogan of the National Rifle Association, which John Lennon saw used in a magazine article for gun enthusiasts.

Even "Mean Mr. Mustard" took root in a newspaper article about an old miser who hid his cash where no one would find it. But it's the less celebrated "She's Leaving Home" that utilizes newspaper clippings most effectively. Paul McCartney read a news story printed in the Daily Mail with the headline "A-Level Girl Dumps Car and Vanishes." A 17-year-old girl ran away from home and just straight-up vanished, leaving her family to grieve in confusion.

"We'd seen that story and it was my inspiration. There was a lot of these at the time and that was enough to give us the storyline. So I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and the parents wake up, it was rather poignant."

Despite the sorrowful source material behind it, the baroque song is curiously peppy throughout, as was the case of most songs off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gownPicks up the letter that's lying thereStanding alone at the top of the stairsShe breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's goneWhy would she treat us so thoughtlessly?How could she do this to me?"