songs about other songs

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may have been done, but Nada Surf's "Blonde on Blonde" is kicking my ass again right now, so here it is...again

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

"Killing Me Softly" by Roberta Flack is supposedly about hearing Don Mclean sing something (but not "The Day the Music Died," strangely enough...or so I've read).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

the real roxanne to thread

― autovac (autovac), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

The Freshies' "I Can't Get 'Bouncing Babies' By The Teardrop Explodes"

Twa Toots' "Please Don't Play 'A Rainy Night In Georgia'"

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I like that John Cougar one where he says, "I grew up dancin' to the Good Rats"

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

"Twice in a row, whilst flying home, we listened to From Silver Lake" (The Field Mice - And Before The First Kiss)

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

"And then he sang a song, The Rare Old Mountain Dew / I turned my face away and dreamed about you"
"The boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay" (The Pogues - Fairytale of New York)

The Pogues - And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Johnny Rivers: "AND THE JUKEBOX KEPT ON PLAYIN' 'SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND'."

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 19 April 2004 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

"You know, I used to sing A-tisket-a-tasket
A green and yellow basket"

- The Shangri-Las - Past, Present and Future

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Sweet Home Alabama's response to Neil Young's Alabama

― frankE, Monday, 19 April 2004 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

"The only thing you done was Yesterday / And since you've gone you're just Another Day" (John Lennon - How Do You Sleep?)

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

as mentioned in the post-punk book thread...Orange Juice cop a line and a solo while singing about the Buzzcocks...

"and this scene is very humdrum, my favorite song is called...boredom"

followed by a recreation of the 2 note Boredom solo.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Talk Talk, "Does Caroline Know?" ref's the Beach Boys' "Caroline, No"

B-52's, "Deadbeat Club" ref's "96 Tears"

although neither is really *about* those songs ...

― Joseph McCombs, Monday, 19 April 2004 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Sweet Home Alabama's response to Neil Young's Alabama

See Classic or dud: Answer Records for more on answer records.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

How I wrote Elastic Man - Fall
Tribute - Tenacious D

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

You were wrong when you said
Everything's gonna be alright
You were right when you said
All that glitters isn't gold
You were right when you said
All we are is dust in the wind
You were right when you said
We are all just bricks in the wall
And when you said manic depression's a frustrating mess
You were right when you said
You can't always get what you want
You were right when you said
It's a hard rain's gonna fall
You were right when you said
We're still running against the wind
And life goes on after the thrill of living is gone
You were right when you said
This is the end

Built To Spill - "You Were Right"

― willem (willem), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

neil young's long may you run - "maybe The Beach Boys have got you now with those waves singing caroline, no"

(if you want to make me cry, play this)

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

"Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/Writing 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you." Bob Dylan, "Sara"

― shookout (shookout), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"i told you 'bout strawberry fields/you know the place where nothing is real..." (and various other self-references) - beatles, "glass onion"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I always thought "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" was about a novelist or something.

Reading it now, I must say, this is one of the greatest sets of lyrics evah:

I'm eternally grateful
To my past influences
But they will not free me
I am not diseased
All the people ask me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

Life should be full of strangeness
Like a rich painting
But it gets worse day by day
I'm a potential DJ
A creeping wreck
A mental wretch
Everybody asks me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

His soul hurts though it's well filled up
The praise received is mentally sent back
Or taken apart
The Observer magazine just about sums him up
E.g. self-satisfied, smug

I'm living a fake
People say, "You are entitled to and great."
But I haven't wrote for 90 days
I'll get a good deal and I'll go away
Away from the empty brains that ask
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

His last work was "Space Mystery" in the Daily Mail,
An article in Leather Thighs
The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes
So I'm resigned to bed
I keep bottles and comics stuffed by its head
Fuck it, let the beard grow
I'm too tired,
I'll do it tomorrow
The fridge is sparse
But in the town
They'll stop me in the shoppes
Verily they'll track me down
Touch my shoulder and ignore my dumb mission
And sick red faced smile
And they will ask me
And they will ask me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 19 April 2004 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, it is. But doesn't he sing "how I wrote Plastic Man" (the idiot public getting the name wrong?).

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:24 (twenty-two years ago)

not quite sure how you would count guided by voices' "the brides have hit glass," which is partly about a song that isn't quite another song but it isn't quite one of those songs that are aware of themselves either.

it's about a (presumably) fictional song that shares the same title as itself:

"i wrote a song once about her/called 'the brides have hit glass' "

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

MES kinda hides the "E" inbetween the beats and stresses the "L," so it sounds like "plastic," which is probably a play on the mutability of the matters under discussion, or maybe a reference to the plagiarism of Action Comics when they turned Jimmy Olsen into "Elastic Lad" with stretch powers similar to Jack Cole's earlier Plastic Man creation. Either way, the song to me envisions an alternate world in which Philip K Dick never discovered speed.
x-post

― sexyDancer, Monday, 19 April 2004 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Reminisce (Part 2) by Dexys Midnight Runners, is just so delicately lovely and sad. apart from that, it's about I'll say forever, my love by Jimmy Ruffin, and its relation to a love affair the young Kev had...

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

There is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall to climb
Or step around ....

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

"And crying on the cab-ride home
With the Frank Sinatra on the radio
But it might as well've been Little Kim
When every song you hear still reminds you of him"

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - "Tonight Was A Disaster"

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

"And all those songs / like Crystal Ball / Dismantled King / You know I love them all / But oh, I still feel like giving in" (Felt - Ballad of the Band

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Damn, "Ballad of the Band" is a great song.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The bridge of Jimmy Eat World's "A Praise Chorus" counts, I suppose.

Red House Painters' "Another Song for a Blue Guitar": "I picked up my brush/Painted a blue guitar/And I ripped off the chords from ‘Bron-Y-Aur’"

Always liked that line.

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Monday, 19 April 2004 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Red House Painters' "Another Song for a Blue Guitar": "I picked up my brush/Painted a blue guitar/And I ripped off the chords from ?Bron-Y-Aur?"

and of course he ripped off the idea of singing about your ripoff from neil young's "borrowed tune": "i'm singing this borrowed tune/i took from the rolling stones/alone in my this empty room/too wasted to write my own."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

half of wesley willis' recorded output, the cleans 'duane eddy'..

― chris andrews (fraew), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 00:57 (twenty-two years ago)

On Steely Dan's "Doctor Wu," Fagen sings "All night long/ we would sing that stupid song," that stupid song being "Visions of Johanna" by Bob Dylan.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 01:05 (twenty-two years ago)

billy bragg's levi stubbs' tears:
norman whitfield and barrett strong/are here to make everything right that’s wrong/holland and holland and lamont dozier too/are here to make it all okay with you...
when the world falls apart some things stay in place/she takes off the four tops tape/and puts it back in its case

also, van morrison's jackie wilson said:
jackie wilson said it was reet petite

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

To Live and Shave In LA's "Se Vende 'Humor Me' Demo" references "Humor Me" by Pere Ubu, as well as Ubu's synth/keyboard player, Allen Ravenstine.

The song itself is built around a sample of the Fall's "City Hobgoblins," with Mark E. Smith's yelp/drone repeating over the bassline.

I wish I could find the link to the lyrics from the Shave album that this song is on ("30-minuten mannercreme"), but it looks like it's no longer around. Maybe I'll transcribe the complete lyrics when I'm not so tired.

"Se vende 'Humor Me' demo
Ravenstine farts thereupon
Says that it is damned"

― Curt Wargo, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 01:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Costello, "Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo": "She looks like Billy Boy Arnold singin' 'I Wish You Would.'" Bruce Thomas then plays Arnold's riff.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

BJM - Not if You Were the Last Dandy On Earth.

def. a song about another song (Dandy Warhols "Not if You Were The Last Junkie On Earth")

― Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 07:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Lifter Puller - "Half Dead and Dynamite"
Hold Steady - "Certain Songs"

― Salmon Pink (Salmon Pink), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Rap music

― LC, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

The Pogues, "And The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'"

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

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