We here at Casaflodnak usually have the radio on at breakfast time. This morning, to fella bilong missus flodnak’s joy, the DJ played David Bowie’s “Space Oddities”. I commented that my generation (I’m twelve years younger than my fella) is mostly familiar with this song because of all the references to it in one of his later singles, “Ashes to Ashes”, which was a favorite on early MTV - you know, back when they played music videos and that was it? Yeah, the Pleistocene, I know.
So, that got me to thinking, and now I’d like to propose a game: How many songs can we think of that refer to an earlier song by the same artist? For the purpose of the game, let’s say that solo artists referring to songs by bands they used to be a part of will count.
The Master, to start us off, has spoken of Steve Miller’s “The Joker”, referring to a whole buncha earlier Miller songs.
Sting’s “Love is the Seventh Wave” ends with a reference to The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. ("…every move you make… every cake you bake…" Cracks me up )
That’s off the top of my head. Any more?
I told you ‘bout the Fool on the Hill
I tell you man he livin’ there still
Well here’s another clue for you all The Walrus was Paul
… Fixing a Hole in the ocean Lady Madonna tryin’ to make ends meet, yeah
Looking through a glass onion
If “Glass Onion” didn’t set some kind of record for this, I’d be surprised.
John Entwistle Band - Endless Vacation
“Hope I get old before I die”
Vs. The Who - My Generation
“I hope I die before I get old”
Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly
Vs. Pink Floyd - One of my Turns
“Would you like to learn to fly? Would you like to see me try?”
Blue Oyster Cult - The Golden Age of Leather
“Torn strips of color, the red and the black”
Vs. Blue Oyster Cult - I’m On The Lamb, But I Ain’t No Sheep
“Red and black - it’s their color scheme”
Matthew Fisher did “Going for a Song” with the lyrics saying “Please don’t make me do that song again.” He briefly plays the organ part from “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” which he played when he was with Procul Harum.
Men Without Hat’s “Pop Goes the World” has a line about going to a disco, and at that point plays a short musical segment from their earlier “Safety Dance”.
There were a lot of sequel songs in the 1950s and the 1960s’. Following Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry if I Want To)”, she got her revenge in “Judy’s Turn to Cry”.
Steve Miller - Space Cowboy, this has been done by Cecil, a strange phrase being the “Pompitas of love” which is apparently a mishearing of lyrics sung by an obscure blues artist.
The Kinks’ “Destroyer” resurrected the character of Lola.
Jethro Tull’s “Cross-eyed Mary” refers to Aqualung (of course, songs from the same concept album mightn’t count).
Not only did Steve Miller’s “The Joker” refer back to “Space Cowboy,” but the first line of “Space Cowboy” refers back to Miller’s earlier hit “Living in the USA.”
Roger McGuinn’s “Love That Never Dies” alludes to the old Byrds hits “Mr. Tambourine Man” (“throw a dime to the tambourine man”) and- I think- “Chestnut Mare” (“and kiss all the horses goodbye”).
While composing Tommy, Pete Townshend made use of some previously written lyrical and musical elements. Many of these came from material written for The Who Sell Out, the album they did right before Tommy, some came from more obscure songs like “Glow Girl”, which ends with the line “It’s a girl, Mrs. Walker!” The Who’s much later “Sister Disco” has a line that goes “Black plastic, deaf, dumb, and blind”, which seems to be a reference to Tommy.
A snippet of The Who’s early single “The Kids Are Alright” was incorporated into their Quadrophenia album. The song “Sea and Sand”, off the same album, references lines from The Who’s very first release (under the name The High Numbers), “I’m the Face/Zoot Suit”.
Could The Stooges’s “1970” be considered a sequel to their earlier “1969”?
Pearl Jam’s “Insignifigance” contains the line “Play C3, let the song protest.” Many Pearl Jam fans believe the song refered to is “Not For You”, the third song on Pearl Jam’s third album.
Lola, of the Kinks’s “Lola” fame, reappears in the later song “The Destroyer”.
The Who’s “The Punk and The Godfather” on Quadrophenia has Daltrey singing “I’m the punk with the stutter.” If there’s any question about what that refers to, the next line in the song is
“My my my my my mmmm my my my GGGGG-g-g-g-g generation”
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