Besides “Hey,hey, we’re the Monkees”?
Chicago?
By signature, I assume we’re including any song that makes direct reference to members of the band or the band itself.
If that’s the case, Eminem’s “My Name Is.”
‘stick em up punk it’s the …’
Fun Lovin’ Criminals
“Bad Company” by Bad Company from the Bad Company album.
A real creative bunch, I’m told.
By “signature” song do you mean a song that explains the band as a whole, or can it just represent a particular time in their existence. If the latter, you could get quite a few songs that just mention “we went here” or “we did this”.
My contributions:
The Ballad of John and Yoko: John Lennon
We’re an American Band: Grand Funk Railroad
Mothers of Invention: “Motherly Love”
Iron Butterfly: “Iron Butterfly Theme”
Black Sabbath: “Black Sabbath”
King Crimson: “In the Court of the Crimson King”
Escape Club mentions themselves in “Wild, Wild West”.
Iron Maiden’s “Iron Maiden”
Bo Diddley - “Hey Bo Diddley” (I think)
The Beatles - Glass Onion had lots of self referential stuff in it as regards their other songs.
I think Motorhead may have an eponymous track as well.
How about :
Cowboy Junkies Lament-written by Townes Van Zandt, performed by Cowboy Junkies, and;
Townes’ Blues- written and performed by the Cowboy Junkies, to return the favor.
To my knowledge, the only artistically inbred “Signature/ Self-Referential” two-fer ever to be found on back-to-back album tracks, the tracks being #10 and #11 on the Cowboy Junkies seminal album Black Eyed Man- if you don’t own this album, go to www.amazon.com , or your friendly neighborhood ** locally owned and operated ** music retailer (if one still exists in your neck or the woods) NOW and get it. It’ll cure what ails ya!
D.O.A.
Blue Oyster Cult
Rotary Connection
In a Big Country by Big Country
Tenacious D - The History of tenacious D
Thanks to Gravity - Thanks to Gravity
They Might be Giants - They Might be Giants
“Everybody Wang Chung tonight…”
Metallica’s song “Whiplash” contains the lyric “We’ll never quit/ We’ll never stop/Cuz we’re Metallica.”
Mamas and the Papas “Creeque Alley”
Meat Puppets “Meat Puppets”
Felt “Ballad of the Band”
Not a band, but: Hank Williams Jr. “Family Tradition”
Jocko Homo by Devo.
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
I’ll never forgive myself for knowing this, but the Plain White T’s reference themselves in their song “Kitty Kat Shirt”:
She says, “By the way, who we gonna see?”
He says, “Don’t you know? It’s the Plain White T’s”
It took me a long time to realize that 311 mentions itself in “Down.”