September 25, 2008
Pop Will Eat Itself Listening to the CSS song "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above", I decided it would be fun to enumerate a playlist of «songs that mention other contemporary musicians or songs by name».
My own reflection yielded a tantalizing few... and then I put the challenge before the formidable pop compendia that are @natedogg, @nanocindy, @habcous and the Strangers. I've placed our enjoyably eclectic playlist below the fold -- rack your brain and tack a few on.
By the way, Hip-hop songs are expressly excluded -- dissing, self-reference and homage leave no challenge there. And in honor of this week's jaw-dropping dbaggery from the Music Industry, there will be no links to Amazon MP3.
- Cansei de Ser Sexy, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" (CSS) ("Kiss me I'm drunk, don't worry it's true / I want you to show me how mad is your love / Come and attack me it's not gonna hurt / Fight me, deny me if I fear when you're close / Let's make love and listen Death From Above")
- Amy Winehouse, "Me & Mr. Jones (fuckery)" ("What kind of fuckery is this? / You made me miss the Slick Rick gig (oh Slick Rick) / You thought I didn't love you when I did (when I did) / Can't believe you played me out like that (Ahhh)")
- Snow Patrol, "Hands Open" ("Put Sufjan Stevens on / and we'll play your favorite song / "Chicago" bursts to life and your / sweet smile remembers you, my / Hands open, and my eyes open / I just keep hoping / That your heart opens")
- The Dead Milkmen, "Punk Rock Girl" ("And security guards trailed us / To a record shop / We asked for Mojo Nixon / They said 'He don't work here' / We said 'If you don't got Mojo Nixon / Then your store could use some fixin''")
- Rise Against, "Thrash Unreal" ("She's not waiting for someone to come over and ask for the privilege. / She can still hear that Rebel Yell just as loud as it was in 1983, you know! / There ain't no Johnny coming home to share a bed with her / and she doesn’t care!")
- Pink, "Don't Let Me Get Me" ("All you have to change / Is everything you are / Tired of being compared / To damn Britney Spears / She's so pretty / That just ain't me")
- Bowling for Soup, "1985" ("Since Bruce Springsteen, Madonna / Way before Nirvana / There was U2 and Blondie / And music still on MTV / Her two kids in high school / They tell her that she's uncool / 'Cause she still preoccupied / With 19- 19- 1985 ... [and more than a half-dozen besides]")
- LFO, "Summer Girls" ("New kids on the block had a bunch of hits / Chinese food makes me sick / And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the / Summer, for the summer ..." [and more, if you can stomach it])
- Barenaked Ladies, "One Week" ("Like Harrison Ford I'm getting frantic / Like Sting I'm tantric / Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy")
- Barenaked Ladies, "Brian Wilson" ("So I'm lying here just staring at the ceiling tiles / And I'm thinking about what to think about / Just listening and relistening to Smiley Smile / And I'm wondering if this is some kind of creative drought / Because I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did / Well I am, I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did"
- Don Henley, "Boys of Summer" ("Out on the road today / I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac / A little voice inside my head said / 'Don't look back, you can never look back' / I thought I knew what love was / What did I know / Those days are gone forever / I should just let 'em go")
- The Ataris, "Boys of Summer" ("Out on the road today / I saw a BLACK FLAG sticker on a Cadillac / A little voice inside my head said, 'Don't look back, You can never look back.' / I thought I knew what love was / What did I know? / Those days are gone forever / I should just let them go")
- Lynyrd Skynrd, "Sweet Home Alabama" ("Well I heard mister Young sing about her / Well, I heard ole Neil put her down / Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / A Southern man don't need him around anyhow")
- Weezer, "El Scorcho" ("I asked you to go to the Green Day concert, you said you never heard of them / (How cool is that) How cool is that? / So I went to your room and read your diary")
- Sublime, "KRS-One" ("In school they never taught bout hamburgers or steak, / Elijah muhammed or the welfare state. / But I know. / And I know because of krs-one. / Yeah and I know and I know because of krs-one. / Because hes droppin science, / Droppin history with a whole leap of style and intelligency / Yes, I know. / I know because of krs-one yeah, / And I know I know because of krs-one.")
- Blondie "Rapture" ("Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly / DJ spinning I said "My My" / Flash is fast flash is cool / François c'est pas, / flash est non deux(?) / And you don't stop, sure shot")
My first one doesn't count, really, but "Alabama" was written by Neil Young after hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" as an apology to Lynrd Skynrd and other Southerners that he felt he was unfair to in "Southern Man", the reference to SHA is made with with the subtle lyrics "Don't you hear the banjo/Don't it take you back home?"
Bob Dylan "Thunder on the Mountain" "I was thinking 'bout Alicia Keys, I couldn't keep from crying/While she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was livin' down the line. I was thinking about where Alicia Keys could be"
Simon and Garfunkel "A Simple Desultory Philippic" has a freakin' trillion '60s pop culture references, including a bunch of '60s music acts. See it's Wikipedia page. Ditto for
Billy Joel "We didn't start the fire"
Old '97s "Ray Charles" Well, the whole song, but we'll go with "Ray just kept on singing he had Georgia on his mind/You just keep on leaving, you're leaving all the time"
Joni Mitchell "Chinese Café" "Down at the Chinese Cafe/We'd be dreaming on our dimes/We'd be playing--/"Oh my love, my darling"/One more time"
and
"Down at the Chinese Cafe/We'd be dreaming on our dimes/We'd be playing--/"You give your love, so sweetly"/One more time"
You know the first reference. The second one is to "Will You love me tomorrow?", a song by Carole King, who is the other part of the 'we' listening with Joni
Tori Amos's album title American Doll Posse is a reference to the Pussycat dolls. Tori was also involved with Trent Reznor for the time, and included subtle Nine Inch Nails references in her songs, like
Tori Amos "Precious things" "And those Nine inch nails/they press into the heart of/every nice girl" and
Tori Amos "Caught a Lite Sneeze" "... you built your own pretty hate machine"
Nanci Griffith "Listen to the Radio" "Loretta Lynn sings her song through the radio/what would I do in times like these/without those songs Loretta wrote?"
Dar Williams "I won't be your Yoko Ono" The entire song, again, but also "And when John called the wind an opera/making love with every chakra/when he said his voice would carry/and when he whispered 'Oh! Chuck Berry'/only then would Yoko set him free"
which reminds me of
Barenaked Ladies "Be my Yoko Ono"
Mark Cohn "Walking in Memphis" "I saw the ghost of Elvis/on Union Avenue"
Son Volt "Afterglow 61" "The words of Woody Guthrie ringing in my head"
I need to go now, but this is my list off of the top of my head. I'm sure if I worked more, I could come up with more examples
Oh, and I amost forgot about
Don McClean "American Pie" which is about The Day the Music Died
And Weezer "Buddy Holly"
Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" is entirely about her breakup with Bob Dylan, too. though I noticed that the intro line is asking for the naming of artists by name, which I guess invalidates some of the ones I listed.
Patti Smith "Rock and Roll Ni****" "Jimi Hendrix was a ni****, Jesus Christ and Grandma, too."
Ah, thanks -- I was trying to recall "that one Simon and Garfunkel song, y'know, the one with Robt McNamara in it".
From @jonthegeek comes Wombats - "Let's Dance to Joy Division"
Listening to Pandora and it's wonderful connections to the album and author biography gives wonderful insight not just into the self/inter-references of music, but also it's development. I remember a wonderful quote from Willy when someone apologized to him for stealing the intro to "Crazy." Willy laughed and said he was just grateful no one had ever called him out on stealing that intro from another artist.
In the country vein:
Waylon Jennings: "Are You Ready For The Country" includes covers of Marshall Tucker, Dr. Hook, and Jimmy Webb, but the title is taken from a Neil Young song.
Hank Williams Jr.: All kinds of references to his father, but my favorite is "Family Tradition." Damn, that's music to get good and liquored up to!
I saw Tito Puente play right after Santana won their Grammy. Santana, of course, famously covered Tito's song "Oye Como Va".
Tito said "When I heard that Santana was on the charts with the song, I was kinda sad. What was wrong with my version? So, I didn't much care for Santana. Then, I got my first royalty check. I LOVE SANTANA!!!"
By the way, one of my life goals is to be going strong as Tito was at 75.
A few that came to me in my post-ACL stupor (also, how contemporary are we talking about?):
Robert Earl Keen "The Great Hank"
The Little Willies "Lou Reed" (also band name after Willie, of course)
Bruce Robison "What Would Willie Do?"
Gillian Welch played a couple during her set at ACL:
"My First lover" "I do not remember any goin wrong/Just a record playin that old steve miller song"
"Elvis Presley Blues" "I was thinkin' that night about Elvis/the day that he died"
Dunno if they ever referred to each other in song, but when asked if he was surprised that Jimi Hendrix covered so many of his songs, Bob Dylan replied "No, they're all his songs."
Mystery lurks in some references, like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_So_Vain
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Bob Dylan "Talkin' World War III Blues" ("Turned on the record player. It was rock-a-day johnny, singing 'Tell your ma, tell your pa, our love's a'gonna grow, ooh-wah, ooh wah")
Oh, wait, he made that one up…
posted by McD at 12:02AM CST on September 26