Songs That Name Other Bands or Songs

Doug: It has occurred to me that the Beatles show up in other people's song lyrics, maybe more than you'd think. Here are a few examples --


Peter, Paul, and Mary, I Dig Rock and Roll Music (1968)

And when the Beatles tell you
They've got a word "love" to sell you
They mean exactly what they say

Dream Academy, Life in a Northern Town (1985)

He said, "In winter 1963
It felt like the world would freeze
With John F. Kennedy and the Beatles"

Sugarloaf, Don't Call Us We'll Call You (1975)

Listen kid you paid for the call
You ain't bad but we've heard it all before
And it sounds like John, Paul and George

Bad Company, Shooting Star (1975)

Johnny was a schoolboy
When he heard his first Beatles song
Love Me Do, I think it was
And from then it didn't take him long

Doug: And then there are artists who name specific songs of other artists, and perhaps even appropriate their music or some close facsimile:

Kid Rock, All Summer Long (2008)

And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long

Johnny Rivers, Summer Rain (1973)

All summer long, we spent dancin' in the sand
And the jukebox kept on playin'
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Doug: So there's your charge today -- name as many songs as possible that either name another artist or another artist's song within their own song. Good luck!

So That's What That Song Was About

Karen: As happens with me at times, I've been on a little reading jag, this time centered on the Rolling Stones. Since I've been doing a bit of traveling I've gotten a lot of reading done. I was on a plane making my way through Robert Greenfield's infamous "S.T.P." tome, a look at the Stones' 1972 tour of America, when I was gobsmacked by this little nugget: the song "Sweet Black Angel" off of the Exile on Main Street album was written in support of activist Angela Davis! I must have heard that song dozens of times and never even thought about it. Now it's not a major cut off that album, but I'm certainly familiar with it. Probably the most memorable thing about it (to me) was the percussion, with the washboards chuck-a-chucking in the back. As soon as I could, I put on my headphones and listened to the song. Admittedly most of Jagger's lyrics were unintelligible to me, but I realized I'd never truly listened to the words before. I went and looked up the lyrics, and then there was no doubt. The song references her being on trial for a judge's murder, and says she's "not a gun totin' teacher, not a Red-lovin' school marm." 

For those who might not know, Angela Davis was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who was a political activist. She was charged with the murder of a judge because she owned the guns used in the crime, although she was not at the scene of the crime. The case became quite huge in the press and a real cause celebre.

I was both surprised and disappointed in myself that I'd never paid attention to the song and caught all of this before. It's an unusual song in that the Stones were very rarely political. I think I had always assumed  the song had a more sexual meaning and completely wrote it off, not giving it any thought. Now when I hear it, of course it will be in a very different light.

What about you? Are there any songs that you discovered the meaning behind them that really surprised you?

Time Trippin' -- Things You Found Out Later

Doug:  Several weeks ago, many of us commented that we'd become aware of the Guardians of the Galaxy before we were actually fully aware of the Guardians of the Galaxy.  That is, they had that one late-Silver Age appearance that many of us were ignorant of until much later.  Similarly, I've remarked a couple of times that I heard and loved Elton John's version of Pinball Wizard years before I ever heard the Who's original recording.

Doug:  Today's a day for telling us those times, and some of these could be funny stories, that you thought life was "as we know it", and then had a little bubble burst later on.  One quite-humorous aspect of this conversation could be song lyrics.  My younger son, as a waif, was notoriously famous for singing what he thought he heard.  We used to tease him, saying "sounds like/really is" about his lyrical revisionism.  I think his best one was mistakenly hearing "Livin' in the swamp" for "Eminence front"...  I have no answer.  This entire idea of hard-to-decipher song lyrics was handled quite smartly in the recent ads for Volkswagon, using Elton John's Rocket Man lyrics as the centerpiece.

Discuss: Thought-Provoking Song Lyrics

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse?

The River, Bruce Springsteen
The River, 1980