Friends are our chosen family, the people we can sometimes count on when everyone else has turned their backs on us.

But friendships vary. They can be a lifelong commitment or they can end tomorrow without warning. Or they can mysteriously fade away from benign neglect.

Friends have inspired numerous songwriters over the years - the ride-or-die friends who will help you hide the body as well as the duplicitous friends who will steal your lover.

On this episode of "How We Heard It," your hosts explore funny, heartfelt, angry, inspiring and pained songs about friendships, songs from pop, rock, R&B and country music that have surfaced on the charts and emerged in movies and television.

Whether they bring out the best in you or bring out the worst, friends have a lasting impact on our lives.

And they might even serve you butter tarts.