Confining myself to UK Top 40 singles, which is the only way something like this can work (and not counting neologisms c.f. "Instinction" by Spandau Ballet):
I suspect "fare thee well" from (Steeleye Span)'s "All Around My Hat"
In America, Jerry Butler's "He Will Break Your Heart" started off with "fare thee well, I know you're leaving."
"carrion" (She Is Suffering, though pronounced in the Sid James sense)
What about "Carrion, My Wayward Son?" ***KIDDING!***
― Rev. Hoodoo, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 19:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Dean Martin - That's Amore, "tarantella"
― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link
and "pizzabella" or whatever he sings.
There *must* be a UK Top 40 single other than Midnight Star's "Headlines" which mentions "chitter-chatter", surely?
― February Callendar, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 23:00 (sixteen years ago) link
and is there another Top 40 single bar "Come to Milton Keynes" that mentions said new town? There might be, but not one that I know.
Milton Keynes is not mentioned in song "Come to Milton Keynes"
― Mark G, Thursday, 7 February 2008 09:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as... (parklife!) And morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight chrough what is known as... (parklife!) Johns got brewers droop, he gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons - they love a bit of it. (parklife!) Whos that gut lord marching? you should cut down on your porklife, mate, get some exercise! (parklife!)
Chorus: All the people So many people And they all go hand in hand Hand in hand through their parklife
Know what I mean?
I get up when I want, except on wednesdays, when I get rudely wakened by the dustmen. (parklife!) I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea, and I think about leaving the house. (parklife!) I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too. It gives me a sense of enormous well-being. (parklife!) And then I'm happy for the rest of the day, Safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it.
Chorus
Parklife - parklife! Parklife - parklife! Its got nothing to do with your vorsprung durch technik, you know. Parklife - parklife! And its not about you joggers who go round and round and round... Parklife - parklife!
― CharlieNo4, Thursday, 7 February 2008 10:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh where to start?
I always heard Dustman (singular) which is obviously in "My old man's a vorsprung durch technik" Lonnie Donegan....
― Mark G, Thursday, 7 February 2008 10:58 (sixteen years ago) link
"Gut" is in "Air Force Ones" by Nelly ("Cop 'em, gut 'em and change the laces")
"Pigeons" is in "No Pigeons" by the much-missed Sporty Thievz
― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 7 February 2008 10:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Mark G is right. And I didn't realise it. And it's probably my favourite Paul Weller single.
"brewers' droop" is a good one. "Parklife" itself is a deliberate neologism so doesn't count. "sparrows" in the singular at least (are we really going to be that pedantic?) is in, er, "The Sparrow" by The Ramblers.
Another three:
"Sherpa Tenzing" (probably) and "Buff Manila" (surely, though it's barely articulated): Saint Etienne "Pale Movie" "Twickenham", where the whisky came from in Scott Walker's "Jackie" (it's Clermont-Ferrand in the original) "Hastings" and "Tyrolean" (and that probably isn't all): Murray Head "One Night In Bangkok"
― February Callendar, Thursday, 7 February 2008 18:57 (sixteen years ago) link
"Hastings": Murray Head "One Night In Bangkok"
"...I was walking down Hastings Street"
---John Lee Hooker, "Boogie Chillen," 1949 (#1 on Billboard's R&B chart)
― Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:26 (sixteen years ago) link
"beagling", "punting", "rucking" - Marillion "Garden Party" (there are other words in that song which may well not appear on any other hits, but I'm not quite so sure). All very UK-specific references as well, which simplifies things still further.
Of course, certain latterday pop people have done such things themselves, and without the Big Changes would have done a lot more. But they don't like to talk about it.
― February Callendar, Thursday, 7 February 2008 22:53 (sixteen years ago) link
And how could I forget "straafed". And possibly "rugger". And surely "Cam" (in the context of the river). I could go on.
In fact, it pretty much shuts this thread down. But I can't think of another UK Top 40 single apart from "October Swimmer" by JJ72 which mentions Helsinki. Or October, for that matter (though I may have missed something really obvious ... but it's just such an *un-pop* month).
― February Callendar, Thursday, 7 February 2008 23:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Something obv?
Howabout "The Calendar Song" by the Trinidad Oil Company?
― Mark G, Friday, 8 February 2008 09:17 (sixteen years ago) link
gets a mention in Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren.
But "stance" can't be all that common.
― kingkongvsgodzilla, Friday, 8 February 2008 09:46 (sixteen years ago) link
and before anyone says, "Dance Stance" doesn't etc...
― Mark G, Friday, 8 February 2008 09:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Is FC Robin C?
― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 8 February 2008 09:56 (sixteen years ago) link
euphoric, incessantly - Mariah Carey, "Heartbreaker"
― Roz, Friday, 8 February 2008 10:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Dingbod - seeing how I know who you are, I'll concede - yes, I am.
The thing is that ages ago I had "Garden Party" down as the ultimate song for a phantom thread like this, but had posted here several times before I remembered it. Of course, the songs it's pastiching didn't appear on the singles chart, with one exception - which reminds me, how many other hit singles bar Genesis's first mention "lawnmower" or, indeed, "wardrobe" itself?
Away from toffism, in relief: "Yehudi Menuhin" (Sparks "Amateur Hour") "beverage" (The Scaffold "Thank U Very Much")
― February Callendar, Saturday, 9 February 2008 05:02 (sixteen years ago) link
"wardrobe" is in Babies by Pulp.
― ailsa, Saturday, 9 February 2008 15:14 (sixteen years ago) link
hurdy gurdy - "Hurdy Gurdy Man"
― Eazy, Saturday, 9 February 2008 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Thanks, Ailsa. "lawnmower" is still open though.
Another October song (and every month) to answer my own question: "Calendar Girl" by Neil Sedaka.
― February Callendar, Saturday, 9 February 2008 22:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Der Kommissar - Falco or After the Fire, take your pick.
― that's not my post, Sunday, 10 February 2008 04:32 (sixteen years ago) link
-- kingkongvsgodzilla, Friday, 8 February 2008 09:46 (2 days ago) Bookmark Link
Hot Chip's "Ready for the floor"
― Mark G, Sunday, 10 February 2008 04:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Silent "Lucidity" by Queensryche
― craven, Sunday, 10 February 2008 12:35 (sixteen years ago) link
"advantageously" in "Not So Manic Now" by Dubstar - although that was written by another band, right?
― Emily S., Sunday, 10 February 2008 13:22 (sixteen years ago) link
no that was them. you probly thinkin of their cover of st swithin's day
― Alan, Sunday, 10 February 2008 13:46 (sixteen years ago) link
well I'm not sure, Alan - I've no idea who the original band were, but I found this on the web, apparently the lyricist was a guy called David Harling who used to work as a psychiatric nurse. The text below comes from an email written by Harling, to a guy in Colchester:
This text is taken from an email written to me by David Harling.
'Not so manic now' attempts to capture something of the mundanity of everyday existance, and so tells a tale of one persons stuggle beyond this.
My writing the song was triggered by working with a gentleman who had killed his neighbour. In brief what happened was that he was living in some high rise flats with his family when one day his wife announced she was leaving him and taking the children with her.
Over the following months, he became more and more depressed which in turn led him to develop a psychotic depression.
He lost all sense of reality and over a period of days began to believe that his neighbour, who happened to be a body builder, had kidnapped his family and killed them.
The twist was that in the depths of his psychosis he began to develop the delusional belief that the noises he could hear from the upstairs flat were those of his neighbour 'grinding the bones' of his dead family.
In actual fact his neighbour was using body building equipment.
(Emily again - weird or what?? I can't find any trace of a pre-Dubstar version of this song, though.)
― Emily S., Sunday, 10 February 2008 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link
"Romford" - Underworld "Born Slippy"
(there was - and I think this might have been the worst record ever made - "The Romford Rap" by Chas and Dave, but mercifully it didn't make the Top 40)
― February Callendar, Monday, 11 February 2008 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link
"Daddy's doing Sister Sally Grandma's dying of cancer now The cattle all have brucellosis <-------- We'll get through somehow" -- Warren Zevon
― violoncellos, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 16:11 (sixteen years ago) link
Toxic - "Toxic"?
― Eazy, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 19:41 (sixteen years ago) link
Cheney; Ovulating - "Without Me"
― Eazy, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 19:43 (sixteen years ago) link
La Isla Bonita has "Tropicaly"
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 23:18 (sixteen years ago) link
'Hubcap'* from "Bang A Gong"
*No, the Sleater-Kinney song of the same name doesn't count
― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 23:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Flux-capacitor - that song by Busted.
― jim, Wednesday, 13 February 2008 21:29 (sixteen years ago) link
pesos, waffle-house, damning, boy-shorts, doubling - R Kelly feat Usher 'Same Girl'
dresser, spatula, unheard, sniggles, midget, - R Kelly 'Trapped in the Closet'
― voorface, Thursday, 14 February 2008 01:27 (sixteen years ago) link
"EINS-ZWEI-DREI-VIER!!!"
(ahem)
Delaware, Perry Como
― Mark G, Thursday, 14 February 2008 14:13 (sixteen years ago) link
Inspired by a recent listen to Thriller:
"the doggone girl is mine"
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Thursday, 14 February 2008 14:14 (sixteen years ago) link
^^^ "Glad All Over" by the Beatles
― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 14 February 2008 14:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Ah, forgot about that one. And theres probably 846 different country songs I haven't heard that use "doggone".
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Thursday, 14 February 2008 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link
"Glad all over" is either "by the Dave Clark Five" or "recorded for a radio 1 session", so either way wasn't a hit.
― Mark G, Thursday, 14 February 2008 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
"Doggone" also appears in Marvin Gaye's "I'll Be Doggone."
"Midget" also appears in Sly & the Family Stone's "Stand."
How about "fruitless"? (Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes")
― Joseph McCombs, Thursday, 14 February 2008 16:14 (sixteen years ago) link
the word "agrophile" appears in Alice Cooper's "Dead Babies"...perhaps not a big "hit", but we all know the song...so there...
― henry s, Thursday, 14 February 2008 16:20 (sixteen years ago) link
and just what the hell is an "agrophile"?
"Snakes On A Plane" = that Kanye song where he says "Snakes On A Plane"
― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 14 February 2008 16:21 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm guessing "You're So Vain" is the only hit song to reference Nova Scotia...and Saratoga, for that matter...
― henry s, Thursday, 14 February 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Nova Scotia's also in Translator's "Everywhere I'm Not."
― Joseph McCombs, Thursday, 14 February 2008 17:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Was that a hit single?
― Tom D., Thursday, 14 February 2008 17:51 (sixteen years ago) link
I had thought it was, but now that I check, it wasn't. Still comes up on SF radio every once in a while, though.
― Joseph McCombs, Thursday, 14 February 2008 21:59 (sixteen years ago) link
It should've been, though.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AQ9TfJjKHUM
― Joseph McCombs, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:00 (sixteen years ago) link
"designated driver": Montell Jordan, "This is How We Do It"
― xhuxk, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:00 (sixteen years ago) link
"reaper"...you know the song...
― henry s, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:24 (sixteen years ago) link