Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

T R E 4 5 O N

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / I hear music in the air

I hear music in the air

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The other day I was driving back from daycare and James Taylor’s “Mexico” came on. At the very end when he’s doodling around he says “in a honky tonk down in Mexico”, referencing the Coasters’ classic.

It got me thinking…what is your favorite shout out to another song within a song? I’ll have to go with the reference to Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Up Above my Head” in the Tramps’ “Disco Inferno. What’s your favorite.

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99Comments

  4. 4.

    Slim from MA

    A certain Mojo Nixon tune comes to mind ( stop playing that crap, you’re out of the band)  but probably not exactly what you’re looking for.  “Real, Real Gone” by Van the Man name checks a handful.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    How about “We’ll sing in the sunshine”  in honor of Adam’s post below.     Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide might be more in tune with the times.

  7. 7.

    oldster

    Shout out to “In the Mood” at the end of “All you need is love”?

     

    That tune had been kicking around for a few years, but it took the great lyricist Andy Razaf to turn it into an irresistible ear-worm.

  8. 8.

    waspuppet

    The Spinners’ “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” has one of Philippe Wynne’s patented outchoruses; this time with “I used to sing ‘fa fa fa fa fa,’ but right now I’m feelin so good, I’m singin la la la la.” A shoutout AND meta.

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This Gilbert & Sullivan fanatic loves the line in the “Modern Major-General” song from The Pirates of Penzance:

    Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din ‘afore,
    And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense, Pinafore

    Probably not exactly what you were looking for ?

  10. 10.

    Gin & Tonic

    Zappa (with Flo & Eddie) segueing into Happy Together on the mudshark album? Or doesn’t that count because it’s too perfect?

  12. 12.

    oldster

    @SiubhanDuinne: 

    That is *exactly* what he was looking for. Well remembered!

    It makes me want to think up those Bach pieces where he starts quoting Buxtehude.

    It’s an old, old game, and a good one. Humans like imitating each other, and outdoing each other, and sometimes good things are the result.

  13. 13.

    rp

    Tom Petty:

    It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
    I had the radio on, I was drivin’
    Trees went by, me and Del were singin’ little Runaway
    I was flyin

    Edit: Although my favorite might be the snippet of “Mr. Soul” you hear at the beginning of Buffalo Springfield’s “Broken Arrow.”

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    My favorite shout-out to another song within a song has got to be “Be my little baby” in Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight.”  What do you mean, just “like” Ronnie sang, Eddie?  It IS Ronnie!

    Because come on, she’s the reason that song was a hit at all.

  15. 15.

    Taken4Granite

    Don McLain’s “American Pie” has a few:

    1. The refrain “This will be the day that I die” references Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day That I Die”. McLain has admitted that “the day the music died” refers to the plane crash in which Buddy Holly died.
    2. “I saw Satan laughing with delight” presumably refers to “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones.
    3. “Birds flew off to a fallout shelter/Eight miles high and falling fast” refers to “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds.
    4. The bit about sergeants playing a marching tune probably refers to the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @oldster: When I worked in radio, I would occasionally put together a program called “Look What They’ve Done to My Song,” wherein I would play one composer’s take on another composer’s tune. Mostly theme-and-variations, but there are some lovely long-form examples. Stravinsky’s wonderful ballet, Le Baiser de la Fée, is a tribute to Tchaikovsky and full of his tunes. Tchaikovsky, in his turn, was a fine borrower — I refer you to his Mozartiana.

  17. 17.

    MuckJagger

    Are the conditions  *only* a line?

    There’s an cult sci-fi (!) inspired song by the old Boston band Scruffy the Cat called “Moons of Jupiter.”  It’s possible some have heard it; it’s popped up in a number of places including “Futurama.”  (This is *not* the Train song “Drops of Jupiter.”)

    About halfway through, for no  apparent reason, they break into the old Tommy James song “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

    I swear on a stack of 45’s it gets me singing every time I hear it.

  20. 20.

    meander

    I’m sure there are more bouncing around in my brain, but because I watched the first episode of “They’ve Gotta Have Us” (a history of black cinema) on Netflix yesterday and it ends with Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” during the opening credits of “Do the Right Thing.”  “Fight the Power” has a shout out to one of the tracks it samples, James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” (from “In the Jungle Groove”):

    1989 the number another summer (get down)
    Sound of the funky drummer
    Music hitting your heart cause I know you got soul
    (Brothers and sisters, hey)

    In one of the documentaries about James Brown, Clyde Stubblefield, the drummer who came up with the beat during a late-night recording session, says 1) that he absolutely hates the “Funky Drummer” song, 2) he wishes he got paid by the artists who sampled the beat in their songs.

    A slightly less direct shout out to James Brown is in one of Prince’s songs from “3121”, where he exhorts his band to “stay on the one” (“Get on the Boat?”), a reference to Brown’s cardinal rule about his music.

  21. 21.

    Shana

    “Oh I’m Sorry (but so is Brenda Lee)” by Marshall Crenshaw.

    “Levi Stubbs’ Tears” by Billy Bragg

  22. 22.

    Miss Bianca

    @eemom: Then there’s Warren Zevon’s response to that song: “Sweet Home Alabama/Play that dead man’s song!”

    ETA: Actually, the lines go:

    Sweet Home Alabama

    Play that dead band’s song!

    Turn those speakers up full blast

    Play it all night long

  23. 23.

    miserybob

    Got to call out one of my favorite John Prine songs, Lake Marie.  It’s just a masterclass in songwriting, jumping back and forth in time, birth, love, death and a great call out to Louie Louie:

    Many years later I found myself talking to this girl
    Who was standing there with her back turned to Lake Marie
    The wind was blowing especially through her hair
    There was four Italian sausages cooking on the outdoor grill
    And they was sizzlin’

    Many years later we found ourselves in Canada
    Trying to save our marriage and perhaps catch a few fish
    Whatever came first, that night she fell asleep in my arms
    Humming the tune to, “Louie Louie”
    Aah baby, we gotta go now

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    @oldster:

    Shout out to “In the Mood” at the end of “All you need is love”?

    The Beatles also quote themselves and sing “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” at the end of  “All you need is love.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    Sting often does that, referring to older Police songs.  I think that’s cheating.

    Steve Miller Band – The Joker

    Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
    Some call me the gangster of love
    Some people call me Maurice
    ‘Cause I speak of the pompatus of love
    People talk about me, baby
    Say I’m doing you wrong, doing you wrong
    Well, don’t you worry, baby, don’t worry
    ‘Cause I’m right here, right here, right here, right here at home

    The pompatus!.

    Hehe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    arielibra

    @SiubhanDuinne: And here I thought I would be the oldest school represented… with the Glenn Miller Band’s parodies of the Ink Spots and Harry James in “Jukebox Saturday Night”.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @arielibra: Not at all! As Oldster points out at #12, the practice goes back at least to the Baroque, and probably much further back than that.

    P. S. I do like “Jukebox Saturday Night”!

  35. 35.

    Yutsano

    @SiubhanDuinne: A saying from my music major days:

    “Everyone robs from everyone else but puts their own spin on it.”

    Mozart shamelessly cribbed from Haydn. Once you hear it you can’t not hear it.

  36. 36.

    clay

    From Belle & Sebastian’s “Piazza, New York Catcher”:

    I wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend
    I know it wouldn’t come to love, my heroine pretend
    A lady stepping from the song we love until this day
    You’d settle for an epitaph like “Walk Away, Renee”

  37. 37.

    PST

    How about Men at Work’s brief flute allusion to “Kookaburra” in “Down Under.” That cost them plenty (very unjustly).

  38. 38.

    Lavocat

    For my money, I’ve got to go with an oldie but a goodie: Simon and Garfunkel’s “A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission)” from their album “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme”, way back in 1966. Just chock full of cultural references and a few songs.

  39. 39.

    Jim Parish

    I love Johnny Rivers’ “Summer Rain”, which has a recurring reference to Sgt. Pepper.

  40. 40.

    mad citizen

    Tom Waits in Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis, has a reference to playing that record from Little Anthony and the Imperials.  In concert Tom would then sing “Going out of my head.   Going Out of my head.. .going out of my head..over you.”

     

    In Waits “I Wish I was in New Orleans ” he references “when the saints go marching in”

  41. 41.

    delk

    Hands Open by Snow Patrol

    Put Sufjan Stevens on
    And we’ll play your favorite song
    ‘Chicago’ bursts to life and your
    Sweet smile remembers you,

  42. 42.

    mad citizen

    @Lavocat: Love that song!  It’s hard to find, I heard it and the story on Sirius radio.  Guess it was a satire of Dylan’s mid-60s stuff.  Very funny stuff.

  43. 43.

    opiejeanne

    Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight: Just like Ronnie sang, Be My Little Baby”.

  44. 44.

    cleek

    Elliot Smith’s “Waltz #2” checks “Cathy’s Clown” (and also “You’re No Good”, and Stephen Bishop’s “On and On”)

     

    Pavement’s “Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence” is entirely about REM:

    Some bands I like to name check,
    And one of them is REM,
    Classic songs with a long history
    Southern boys just like you and me.
    R – E – M
    Flashback to 1983,
    Chronic Town was their first EP
    Later on came Reckoning
    Finster’s art, and titles to match:
    South Central Rain, Don’t Go Back To Rockville,
    Harbourcoat, Pretty Persuasion,
    You were born to be a camera,
    Time After Time was my least favourite song,
    Time After Time was my least favourite song.

    The singer, he had long hair
    And the drummer he knew restrait.
    And the bass man he had all the right moves
    And the guitar player was no saint.
    So lets go way back to the ancient times
    When there were no 50 states,
    And on a hill there stands Sherman
    Sherman and his mates.
    And they’re marching through Georgia,
    we’re marching through Georgia,
    we’re marching through Georgia
    G-G-G-G-Georgia
    They’re marching through Georgia,
    we’re marching through Georgia,
    marching through Georgia
    G-G-G-G-Georgia
    and there stands REM

  46. 46.

    Pappy G

    Highway Patrolman – Bruce Springsteen

    “Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria as the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood…”

  47. 47.

    West of the Rockies

    I like how “River” opens with “Jingle Bells” before turning into the ballad of love and regret we all know.

  49. 49.

    Barbara

    The Persuasions, “Night Shift,” which is a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye.

  51. 51.

    prostratedragon

    @Yutsano:
    Yeah, the frequency of that is so great that I’m having trouble thinking of a clear example.

    I will say that it was a wonderful moment when it hit me what “Bitches Brew” sounds like a cover of. You have to let it creep up on you for best effect.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @JPL:

    Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide might be more in tune with the times.

    Especially because the chorus has been suggested as an alternative thing to sing to time your hand washing.

    ETA: Does “Glass Onion” count as a song referencing other songs, since it’s all about their own work?

  53. 53.

    RandyG

    For us older rock n’ roll types: Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time” references Gary U.S. Bonds’ “Dear Lady Twist”, The Tokens “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman”.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Van Morrison finishes out Real Real Gone thusly

    Wilson Pickett said:
    “In the midnight hour,
    That’s when my love comes tumbling down”
    Solomon Burke said:
    “If you need me, why don’t you call me”
    James Brown said:
    “When you’re tired of what you got, try me”
    Gene Chandler said:
    “There’s a rainbow in my soul”

  55. 55.

    FelonyGovt

    Back In The USSR which is essentially a big Beach Boys parody.

    And the Traveling Wilburys’ Tweeter and the Monkey Man which has multiple references to Springsteen songs- Thunder Road, etc.

  56. 56.

    LeftCoastYankee

    It’s not a shout out to a song but the IIRC the 3 note open to Beethoven’s Fifth is the Morse code rhythm for “V”, as in Victory against Napoleon.

    Also I think ELO samples it in their cover of “Rollover Beethoven”.

    Not sure if it counts but the Jayhawks song “Ms. Williams Guitar” is an all time fave.

  57. 57.

    Tym

    PJ Harvey’s “Words That Maketh Murder” with its “What if I take my problems to the United Nations?” coda.

  58. 58.

    LightCastle

    Not exactly on target, but in keeping with the “musicians are going to constantly slip references to things in for themselves”, my sister’s song “Iceman (Murders in the Rue Morgue)” was actually just a collection of references to Val Kilmer’s entire filmography as it existed at the time she wrote it.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @FelonyGovt:

    Back In The USSR which is essentially a big Beach Boys parody.

    I think that would technically be a pastiche rather than a parody.  A parody is making fun of a specific work, while a pastiche is making fun of a style.

  61. 61.

    LightCastle

    @LeftCoastYankee: I think Beethoven’s 5th predates morse code by several decades, doesn’ t it?

    As far as an actual call out, Leonard Cohen throws a shout out to Hank Williams in “Tower of Song”.

  62. 62.

    Jim Parish

    @FelonyGovt: I think, and Wikipedia confirms, that “Back in the USSR”‘s direct inspiration was Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA”, although “California Girls” did have some influence.

  63. 63.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    The Beatles Savory Truffle…

    We all know Ob-la-di-bla-da / But can you show me where you are?

    Both Harrison and Lennon hated the song and resented the amount of time spent recording it.

    Speaking of Lennon…

    So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
    You better see right through that mother’s eyes
    Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
    The one mistake you made was in your head

    Ah, how do you sleep?
    Ah, how do you sleep at night?

    You live with straights who tell you you was king
    Jump when your momma tell you anything
    The only thing you done was yesterday
    And since you’re gone you’re just another day

  64. 64.

    Shana

    @clay: Damn!  Totally forgot about that one.  Thanks

     

    Also “Jackie Wilson said it was Reet Petite” by Van Morrison

  65. 65.

    crshark

    From the Commodores’ Night Shift, their tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson:

    “Marvin sang of the joy and pain… And I still can hear him say
    Aw talk to me so you can see/What’s going on”

    Also: “It seems like yesterday/When we were working out” and “Your love, it lifted us/Higher and higher”

  67. 67.

    TomV

    Joni Mitchell’s Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody wholesale incorporation of the Righteous Brothers.

  68. 68.

    lowcountryboil

    @cleek: On the same album, Elliott’s “Baby Britain” also has a couple of references – an album and a song:

    “The light was on but it was dim
    Revolver’s been turned over
    And now it’s ready once again
    The radio is playing Crimson and Clover”

  69. 69.

    PAM Dirac

    @Barbara: The Persuasions, “Night Shift,” which is a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye

    Of course the Persuasions also have “Lookin’ for an Echo” which quotes a lot of doo-wop songs.

  71. 71.

    JanieM

    Ballad of the St. Anne’s Reel.  That’s David Mallett doing it — the guy who wrote it.  A lot of other people have recorded it, this is the one I know best.

    Probably every fiddler on earth — including me in a younger incarnation — has played the St. Anne’s Reel itself. Here’s Aly Bain, not my favorite version, but that one was embedded in a TV show and I can’t find it right now.

  72. 72.

    Mo' Salad

    Bare Naked Ladies finishing “Hello City” with the chorus of The Housemartins’ “Happy Hour”.

  78. 78.

    Deep Southerner

    The brass riff from Blood, Sweat & Tears’ “Spinning Wheel” (“What goes up/Must come down …”) to start “Night Train” by Public Enemy.

  79. 79.

    Wileybud

    @Brachiator: Another Beatles song quote:
    Standing on the cast iron shore, yeah
    Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah
    Looking through the glass onion

  80. 80.

    Miss Bianca

    @JanieM: Oh, thank goodness you mentioned that song – I have to compile a list for BMI and ASCAP of every cover song any band playing in our venue does, and the band who came last week played that one. Had no idea who had written it, figured I would have to Google it.

  81. 81.

    Chris Johnson

    Do band references count?

    “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening…”

    Steely Dan, Everything You Did

  82. 82.

    Kevin Moore

    Toward the end of Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway,” Peter Gabriel quotes George Benson’s “On Broadway.” Well, misquotes. Here is Gabriel:

    They say the lights are always bright on Broadway.
    They say there’s always magic in the air.

    The original by Benson goes:

    They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway

    Anyway, I loved that as a kid.

  85. 85.

    sphouch

    I love the reference to Pagliacci in Tears of a Clown.  But then, I also think that Smokey is the best voice of the 1960s and Tears of a Clown is a top 10 all timer.

  86. 86.

    Onkel Fritze

    Not a song but a concert. Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’:

    ‘Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place around but some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground’.

    True story.

  88. 88.

    Feather as a Light

    I always liked Rush’s Spirit of the Radio:

    “For the words of the profits
    Were written on the studio wall
    Concert hall”

    From Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence:

    “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
    And tenement halls”

    When I was a teenager I thought Rush was so cool. Listening to them as an adult I realized that I had totally missed how tongue-in-cheek they were.

  89. 89.

    Amir Khalid

    Nearly every line of American Pie has a reference to other music or other musicians:

    The Jester sang for the king and queen/In a coat he borrowed from James Dean/And a voice that came from you and me

    And while the King was looking down/The Jester stole his thorny crown

    Eight Miles High and falling fast

    Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Flash sat on the candlestick

  90. 90.

    dp

    “Yer Blues” shoutout to “Ballad of a Thin Man”:  “Feel so suicidal, just like Dylan’s Mr. Jones.”

  91. 91.

    oldster

    @sphouch:

    “But then, I also think that Smokey is the best voice of the 1960s and Tears of a Clown is a top 10 all timer.”

     

    I second that emotion!!

  93. 93.

    Johannes

    In Dusty Springfield’s cover of “Windmills of Your Mind” as the song ends, you can hear a snippet of “Let’s Spend the Night Together

  94. 94.

    karpo

    @eemom: Then the Warren Zevon response to that: “Sweet Home, Alabama.  Play that dead band’s song.  Turn the music up real loud and play it all night long.

  95. 95.

    fun with duct tape

    1 – Cole Porter, “Begin the Beguine:”

    When they begin the beguine,

    It brings back the sound of music so tender . . . .

     

    2 – Noel Coward, “Nina:”

    She declined to begin the beguine when they besought her to,

    And in language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to,

    She cursed Cole Porter, too.

  96. 96.

    S-Curve

    Surprised not to see the Replacements’ “Alex Chilton,” probably my favorite song about another artist. “I never travel far / Without a little Big Star…”

  97. 97.

    ...now I try to be amused

    When this grey world crumbles like a cake
    I’ll be hanging from the hope
    That I’ll never see that recipe again

    — They Might Be Giants, “It’s Not My Birthday”

    Referencing “MacArthur Park”, of course.

  99. 99.

    russell

    songs about other singers:

    “when smokey sings” by abc

    “levi’s stubb’s tears” by billy bragg”

    songs with other songs

    “and the band played waltzing matidla” by eric bogle [and dozens of cover versions]

    “jerusalem” by dave stewart and barbara gaskin

    “walk of life” by dire straits

    and my fave, “one of these days” by jill sobule

    here’s the relevant part>>>
    One of these days and it’ll be real soon
    I’m gonna kick some ass
    Gonna clean my room
    Sometime soon

    One of these days I’m gonna touch the sky
    Like that awful song
    “I believe I can fly”
    “I believe I can fly”

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