The latest Weezer album has a song called Heart Songs which mentions a bunch of musical artists. It also has a mistake, it says Debbie Gibson did “I think we’re alone now” when Tiffany did it.
Please tell me this is a woosh?
Considering the song was written in 1973, Elton and Bernie would have had to be psychics to be talking about that Madonna… at the time, she was still Madonna Ciccone, unknown high school student and dancer.
It is about a famous person though… a girl called Norma Jean.
I’ll never Smoke Weed with Wille again
Galileo - The Indigo Girls
And Come on Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners mentions “poor old Johnny Ray”
Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond is apparently about Caroline Kennedy
A few from Sonic Youth:
Hey Joni– a tribute to Joni Mitchell.
Tunic (Song for Karen)– about Karen Carpenter. Name drops Elvis, Janis Joplin, Dennis Wilson.
Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsburg)
Kim Gordon/Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream– mocks Mariah Carey and her supposed short relationship with Eminem; Mariah Carey’s name was replaced with Kim Gordon’s on the album release to avoid legal problems. Oh, and it name drops Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Helen Lundeberg
Walter Johnson
Pablo Picasso and
Vincent Van Gogh, all by Jonathan Richman.
Hey Jack Kerouac - 10,000 Maniacs
Brian Wilson - Barenaked Ladies
James Dean - The Eagles
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? - Waylon Jennings
No…I just get Marylin Monroe and Madonna mixed up. :smack: It happens to me…once, I had Greenpeace and Graceland mixed up for a solid year!
The Dickies have saluted various celebrities, in songs including:
Whack The Dalai Lama
I’m Stuck In A Condo (With Marlon Brando)
I’m Stuck In A Pagoda (With Tricia Toyota)
Manny, Moe and Jack**
Howdy Doody In The Woodshed*
*A little Asian Goddess came from up above
I thank you NBC for sending my love
And Tricia is the one I’ve been dreaming of
**the Pep Boys
and as a special bonus, to make up for the erroneous Elton John mention, there’s
Pre-Madonna by the Kursaal Flyers (a great song).
“You Otta Know” is supposedly about Dave Coulier, though he’s probably about as famous for the song as he is for playing Joey on Full House. So I’m not sure it counts.
Boyskout “Spotlight” & Tori Amos “Jackie’s Strength” = Jackie Kennedy
The Rakes “When Tom Cruise Cries”
Self “Meg Ryan”
Joan Osborne “Spider Web” = Ray Charles
Bard of Ely “You’re a Liar, Nicky Wire” (Nicky Wire is in the band Manic Street Preachers)
Veruca Salt “With Dave Bowie”
John Oszajca “Where’s Bob Dylan When You Need Him?”
“Hey Leonardo (She Likes Me for Me)” by Blessid Union of Souls, is a reference to, I believe, Leonardo DiCaprio.
But it also mentions Tyson Beckford, Robert Redford, Steve Buscemi, Pavarotti, Cindy Crawford, Jim Carrey, and technically Clint Eastwood.
A couple I remember from early 80’s:
Human Sexual Response – Jackie Onassis
Angel & the Reruns - Buffy Come Back
I’m sure that a song about Buffy by Angel is giving a lot of people the wrong cultural inference.
If you include novelty-type songs there are lots.
Tom Lehrer wrote “Werner von Braun,” “Alma”, “Whatever Became of Hubert [Humphrey]”, etc. Of course those songs were intentionally written on current events for “That Was The Week That Was”.
In Carol Burnett’s early career, she appeared on TV singing “I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles”.
There must be more.
The Minutemen:
“Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs”
“Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”
“Joe McCarthy’s Ghost”
“If Reagan Played Disco”
Another for the list, which I just heard a few minutes ago while shopping at Kroger:
Robert De Niro’s Waiting… by Bananarama.
Some political ones:
“Fables of Faubus”, Charles Mingus (about the segregationist Ark. governor)
“Margaret on the Guillotine”, Morrisey and “Stand Down Margaret” by the English Beat (obviously Mrs. Thatcher)
“James K. Polk”, They Might Be Giants
“Mr. Churchill Says”, the Kinks
“Ohio”, CNSY (“tin soldiers and Nixon’s gone”) and “A Song for Richard and His Friends”, Chicago
“Holiday in Cambodia” by the Dead Kennedys namechecks Pol Pot several times
…I could go on and on
Diana Ross’s “Missing You” is also about Marvin Gaye.
[ul][]ABC had “When Smokey Sings” about Smokey Robinson[]Scritti Politti “Pray Like Aretha Franklin”[]Living Colour namechecked Kennedy, Stalin and Gandhi in “Cult of Personality”[]Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” is about Rosanna Arquette, though she’s not named[]Billy Joel’s outright said that a number of his songs (“Just the Way You Are” “Uptown Girl” and “All About Soul” to name but a few) were about his first two wives, but none of them name them. “Downeaster Alexa” is a song about the dying fishing industry in Long Island but Alexa is his daughter’s. “Goodnight My Angel” is a lullabye he wrote for her that’s sort about her.[]Robbie Williams has a song called “She’s Madonna” which actually is about Madonna Louise Ciccone Penn Ritchie[]New Radicals “Get What You Give” namechecks Beck, Marilyn Manson, Hanson and Courtney Love in not so nice ways[]Duran Duran was “Hallucinating Elvis” Hawaii to Las Vegas[*]Tangentially famous, if not necessarily as much as she would’ve been on her own merits: Pattie Boyd, first wife of George Harrison and then wife of Eric Clapton, immortalized in song in The Beatles “Something” and Clapton’s “Layla” “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Wonderful Tonight”[/ul]And rap songs do this all the time, inserting a name just to make a clever rhyme, we would be here till 2025 if we tried to list all of those, but they’re just passing mentions anyway.
“The Right Profile” by the Clash is about (and mentions by name) Montgomery Clift.