RFI lyrical antecedents thread

Ah, this has a long discussion as well of how far back it goes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting_on_Top_of_the_World.
Actually this came up before here: Steve Miller - C/D?

interesting reference to stephen calt in the first link. he wrote so many great liner notes for yazoo; i didn't realize he wrote a book.

am curious about the hampsterdance one using the roger miller song from the disney flick "robin hood" and whether that goes further back

the whole "floating lyrics" phenomenon is a real trip. it makes me think of those hyper-diligent ethnographers who find strange traces of elizabethan english in isolated appalachian communities or whatever.

Yes, exactly.

interesting reference to stephen calt in the first link. he wrote so many great liner notes for yazoo; i didn't realize he wrote a book.

It was on the Big Star thread, but don’t have time to find and link to the starting point of that sub discussion. Just read the whole thread, it’s worth it.

will do!

Okay, for convenience, first mention of Calt is here: Big Star

wow, thanks!

Speaking of Iggy Pop, his song "Loco Mosquito" (1980) starts off with

My mommy told me
If I were goody
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly

Years later I realized these lyrics are also in "The Clapping Song" by Shirley Ellis (1965).

And just recently I learned Ella Fitzgerald sang the same lyrics in her 1939 recording "My Wubba Dolly."

That's a children's song though, isn't it?

Stand By Me

"If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountain should crumble to the sea"

Psalm 46

"1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;"

been reading the Psalms lately, there's loads that have probably worked their way into popular music thru Gospel and Blues songs

That's a children's song though, isn't it?

So God knows when it dates from.

Benjamin Lee of New York is credited with making the first rubber doll in 1855, so we have a starting point

So “timeless flight” is a “Rocket Man” lyric, before that a Moody Blues album title and afterwards another album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. B-b-but where does this phrase originate?

And don’t forget a book about The Byrds.

And not a star but shines too bright
On him who takes such timeless flight.

--Lord Byron, The Giaour

https://observer.com/2016/11/bernie-taupin-talks-art-and-the-stars-stripes/

What I had learned about art and literature came from my mother, from, for instance, seeing the works of JMW Turner and the writings of Tennyson and Lord Byron.

Thanks!