Entertainment For Lively Minds
Songs that name check other bands.
Posted by Dave Amitri on 6 December 2009 - 9:02pm.
I was listening to "Mr Love Pants" by Ian Dury & The Blockheads today and during the wonderful "Itinerant Child" he name checks Steely Dan.
"Soon I was rumbling through the morning fog
with my long haired children and my one eyed dog
with the trucks and the buses and the trailer-vans
my long throw horns playing Steely Dan"
Any other examples?
I found this wonderful version on Youtube, sadly no Ian Dury but man those Blockheads can play!
I don't know how many times I've listened to this song but this line had never really registered before, must be all Steely Dan references on here and the fact that I now own "The Very Best of Steely Dan"
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Posted elsewhere today! (on the Mark Hagen podcast thread)
The Fleshtones - American Beat lists a bunch of those who have it :
I'm sure that I remember Mark Hagen suggesting this as a good hook for a TV show!
Talking of Steely Dan..
I think it's Kid Charlemagne that includes the line "Turn up The Eagles, the neighbours are listening"
Steely Dan
Namecheck themselves on Show Biz Kids.
And Aretha Franklin on Hey Nineteen.
The Brubeck references are on The Nightfly
and at least two more from them
Babylon Sisters mentions "Jungle Music" - an album recorded by Duke Ellington / Charles Mingus / Max Roach. (Naturally it is excellent
What I Do (from Morph The Cat) is a conversation with the spirit of Ray Charles.
T Rex...
... gets a mention in The Who's You Better You Bet and in Mott/Bowie's All The Young Dudes.
I'll think of more while I'm wrapping the Xmas presents.
The Skids / Subway Sect
When The Skids covered "All The Young Dudes", they sang "I need TV, but I got Subway Sect"
R.O.C.K. In The USA - John Mellencamp
Voices from nowhere
And voices from the larger towns
Filled our head full of dreams
Turned the world upside down
There was Frankie Lyman-Bobby Fuller-Mitch Ryder(They were Rockin')Jackie Wilson-Shangra-las-Young Rascals(They were Rockin'
)Spotlight on Martha Reeves
Let's don't forget James Brown
Rockin' in the U.S.A.
turn up the eagles
its in the song Every thing you did from the Royal scam they also name check themselves on Show biz kids from Countdown to ecstacy
Thunder Road
The screen door slams
Mary' dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Lucinda Williams & Deep Purple & The Clash
Lucinda Williams :
Lake Charles has a line about "Listening to Howlin' Wolf".
Metal Firecracker has the line "We'd put on ZZ Top and turn them up real loud"
Ventura has "Take the long way home so I can ride around, put Neil Young on and turn up the sound"
Deep Purple :
Smoke On The Water mentions Frank Zappa & The Mothers.
The Clash :
Clash City Rockers mentions Old Bowie, Gary Glitter, and Prince Far-I
Todd Snider - Vinyl Records
Check out the lyrics (and the chords) here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/snider-todd/vinyl-records-10812.html
.
.
Joy Division Oven Gloves!
Nick Cave Dolls!
Rangelife
Pavement's song famously pokes fun at The Smashing Pumpkins and The Stone Temple Pilots, two pretty deserving targets to my mind.
from Marillion's Drilling Holes
"We ordered extra tea
Listened to XTC..."
Let's be honest it was never going to be N Dubz was it?
Ian McNabb Fire Inside My Soul
They said "You talk just like the Beatles"
Listening to the Flying Burritos,
Television Personalities
"I Know Where Syd Barret Lives" is about visiting Syd for tea.
"Part-Time Punks" :
Then they go to Rough Trade / To buy Siouxsie & the Banshees / They heard John Peel play it / Just the other night'
They'd like to buy the O Levels single / Or "Read About Seymour" / But they're not pressed in red / So they buy the Lurkers instead.
They play their records very loud / They pogo in the bedroom / In front of the mirror / But only when their mum's gone out
They pay five pee on the buses / And they never use toothpaste / But they got two fifty / To go and see the Clash tonight
Blind Willie McTell
"And I know no-one can sing the blues / like Blind Willie McTell"
Well,
Dury again with 'Sweet Gene Vincent' springs to mind.
As does 'Freebird' -> Neil Young.
And Neil Young -> Johnny Rotten.
I think I just went recursive. I need a Sex Pistols or PIL song about Dury and the internet will implode.
Free Bird?
Sweet Home Alabama surely?
"I heard Neil Young sing about us, I heard ole Neil put us down, well I hope Neil Young can remember, a Southern man don't need him around anyhow....
Sweet Home Alabama, where the skies are so blue...."
The old curmudgeon loved it....
But of course...
...late night, wine, brain fade....foot in mouth
the Jayhawks
namecheck Nick Cave in poor little fish
Spandau namcheck Marvin Gaye on True (as do H Town on Knock Da Boots)
ABC namecheck Smokey Robinson
Scritti try to sing like and mention Aretha Franklin
The Clash namecheck Dillinger, Leroy Smart, Delroy Wilson, Ken Booth and the four Tops all in Whita Man In.......
Bowie mentions Bob Dylan in...er...Song For Bob Dylan
Weezer of course with Buddy Holly
The Pasadenas Tribute lists too many to mention
and The Wombats urged you to dance to Joy Divison
Prince namechecks Joni Mitchell
...on The Ballad of Dorothy Parker
'What's that man movin' cross the stage...
It looks a lot like the one used by Jimmy Page' - Rockshow by The Band The Beatles Could Have Been.
The Seeker by The 'Oo
"I asked Bobby Dylan, I asked the Beatles, I asked Timothy Leary, but he couldn't help me either, they call me the Seeker, I've been searching low and hi-iiiiiiiigh......
Won't get to get what I'm after, til the day I die...."
Moonie, take it away.....!!
My...
favourite 'Oo song. Bloody brilliant.
It is brilliant.......
Even Cast couldn't ruin it despite a good solid try...
"I Can't Get 'Bouncing
"I Can't Get 'Bouncing Babies' By The Teardrop Explodes"
- by (I think?) The Freshies
The Reynolds Girls - I'd rather jack (than Fleetwood Mac)
Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music
G Love & Special Sauce - Blues Music
They Might Be Giants
Twisting: The cruel girlfriend does not get her db's and Young Fresh Fellows tapes back.
Mylo mentions a fair few
in "Destroy Rock 'n' Roll". I've no idea where the sample comes from though.
Two for the price of one?
Tears for Fears "Sowing The Seeds of Love"
"Kick out The Style, bring back The Jam" at 1:22
The Men They Couldn't Hang ..
mentioned in The Tragically Hip's Bobcaygeon, top tune too!
Badges, Posters, Stickers and T-shirts
A Dire Straits b side is all about two AC/DC fans
'Me and my mate like AC/DC
Hot and sweaty, loud and greasy
My mam says we're a pair of perverts
Got any badges, posters, stickers or t-shirts?'
The Concept
By Teenage Fanclub
"Says she's gonna get some records by the Status Quo"
And there's Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, of course. Repeated Iron Maiden references.
Dr Feelgood
is right down my street.
Nils Lofgren - Cry Tough
Heard on the radio today..
New Radicals You Get What You Give in which they admonish Beck to "come around, we'll kick your ass in".
One of the best one-hit wonders of recent times.
And didn't someone do a recent album called Peter Hammill?
And which Steely Dan song mentions nothing but blues and Elvis?
does this count?
What about "Levi Stubbs Tears" by Billy Bragg?
Too obvious?
And, yes, I did pick the version with Kirkcaldy's favorite arrow thrower
A Word thread trifecta
A namecheck (well the entire song is one long namecheck), a Canadian artiste/act and a joke.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
were at the best place in town.
can't believe this hasn't been thrown in yet.
Also Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song:
"I said to Hank Williams
How lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet"