# Game: Songs referring to earlier songs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 3, 2002, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116 "2002-06-03T09:45:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/1 "2002-06-03T09:45:13Z")
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](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_065.html), 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? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/2 "2002-06-03T09:52:48Z")
_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. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/3 "2002-06-03T09:53:08Z")
There’s several by The Beatles. “Glass Onion” makes a reference to “I Am the Walrus.” Another big one would be “Garden Party” by Ricky Nelson in which he mentions many many songs he did. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/4 "2002-06-03T10:45:43Z")
Yay! Can I play too? I’ve got one!! **It’s My Life** by Bon Jovi refers to **Walking on a Prayer** > [@](#): > > \*\*It’s My Life: \*\*_This is for the ones who stood their ground > For **Tommy** and **Gina** who never backed down > Tomorrow’s getting harder make no mistake > Luck ain’t even lucky > Got to make your own breaks_ > [@](#): > > \*\*Livin’ on a Prayer: \*\*\ ***Tommy** used to work on the docks > Union’s been on strike > He’s down on his luck…it’s tough, so tough > **Gina** works the diner all day > Working for her man, she brings home her pay > For love - for love \* ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/5 "2002-06-03T10:54:55Z")
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” Just a few off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![crazy4chaucer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@crazy4chaucer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazy4chaucer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/6 "2002-06-03T11:44:45Z")
Splish-splash I was takin’ a bath. . . refers to Lollypop Peggy Sue Good Golly Miss Molly ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/7 "2002-06-03T12:42:56Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/8 "2002-06-03T13:17:18Z")
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”. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/9 "2002-06-03T13:41:15Z")
Veruca Salt’s “Volcano Girls” makes reference to both their own hit “Seether” and to the Beatles’ “Glass Onion”: “I told you 'bout the seether before, You know the one who’s neither or nor; Well here’s another clue if you please, The seether’s Louise!” ---
**Author:** ![malden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@malden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malden)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/10 "2002-06-03T14:02:08Z")
The Beatles’ “All you Need is Love” ends with a couple of repeats of the refrain from “She Loves You.” ---
**Author:** ![king\_of\_spain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7cd45c/32.png) [@king\_of\_spain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/king_of_spain)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/11 "2002-06-03T14:38:20Z")
R.E.M.'s “Lotus” contains the line “dot dot dot and I feel fine,” a reference to “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/12 "2002-06-03T15:08:54Z")
American Pie has lots of referances. 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. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/13 "2002-06-03T15:18:02Z")
Let’s see… 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”). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/14 "2002-06-03T15:23:01Z")
More… Buddy Holly had a minor hit with a sequel to “Peggy Sue,” called “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Bob Dylan’s plaintive “Sara” alludes to his old song “Sad-Eyed Lady,” which he’d written long ago for his ex-wife Sara. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/15 "2002-06-03T15:24:58Z")
Ben Folds’ “Fred Jones Part Two” brings back Fred Jones from “Cigarette”. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/16 "2002-06-03T15:25:51Z")
How about the Guess Who’s song about their early days, “When the Band Was Playing Shakin’ All Over”? On “Hungry Daze,” Deep Purple sing “We all came out to Montreux… but that’s another song,” an allusion to their old hit “Smoke on the Water.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/17 "2002-06-03T15:29:08Z")
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”. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/18 "2002-06-03T15:47:25Z")
Lynrd Skynyrd wrote _Sweet Home Alabama_ in reply to Neil Young’s _Southern Man_: “…and I hope Neil Young will remember, A _Southern Man_ don’t need him around, anyhow” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/19 "2002-06-03T16:09:17Z")
The Beatles’ “If I Fell in Love with You” (Is that the right title?) has the line: _'Cause I’ve been in love before And I found out love is more Than just holding hands_ …a reference to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” Also, Chuck Berry did a sequel to Johnny B. Goode (called “By Bye Johnny,” I think). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2002, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116/20 "2002-06-03T23:17:03Z")
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” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-songs-referring-to-earlier-songs/112116.md?page=2)