While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Beatles
Just did a quick scroll and damn, somebody beat me to “Beth.”
The Clash “Complete Control” is a great one (“On the last tour me mates they couldn’t get in/We’d open up the back door and they’d get run out again.”) And I love Too Much Joy’s cover version of The Records’ “Starry Eyes,” which they rewrote completely to tell the story about getting busted for covering 2 Live Crew songs onstage.
ETA: how could I forget “It’s A Long Way To The Top” by AC/DC? Classic ode to the grind of touring, with a kickass bagpipe solo to boot.
Road songs are often a albatross around an artist’s second album. Their first album uses up most of their good material, then they tour it relentlessly. It comes time to make a new album, and their life experience has been reduced to the bus and the backstage holding area, so second albums often have a “woe is me, it’s tough to tour” track or two. I seem to remember Tracy Chapman’s sophomore disc suffering from this.
And then there are meta-songs that are about themselves (i.e. about the song itself—like the process of witing it).
“Number Three” - They Might Be Giants
There’s only two songs in me and I just wrote the third
Don’t know where I got the inspiration or how I wrote the words
“This Is The Title” - The Swirling Eddies
I’ve only come up with a few lines…
I just sang the lines
These are the lines
Reminds me of the Gary Shandling Show theme.
The best gun/guitar metaphor I’ve heard is “Certain Kind of Fool”.
It’s the Eagles, off Desperado of course, but it’s thoroughly a Randy Meisner song (who else could sing that high?), and probably auto-biographical.
He saw it in a window
The mark of a new kind of man
He kinda liked the feeling, so shiny and smooth in his hand.
He took it to the country and practiced for days without rest
And then one day he felt it
He knew he could stand with the bestThey got respect, oh yeah
He wants the same, oh yeah
And it’s a certain kind of fool that
Likes to hear the sound of his own nameA poster on a storefront, the picture of a wanted man
He had a reputation, spreading like fire through the land
It wasn’t for the money, at least it didn’t start that way
It wasn’t for the runnin’ …
… but now he’s runnin’ every day.
In a lighter side, how about “Have you heard the news? Dewey Cox Died” written by and autobiographically about a singer named Dewey Cox, sung by Dewey Cox, who literally dies at the end of his singing the song?
We all came down to Montreux,
on the Lake Geneva shore line
To make records with the Mobile
We didn’t have much time
“25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago is about a guy staying up into the wee hours of the morning trying to write a song.
“Your Song” by Elton John is about a guy writing a song for his lover, and it’s a bit stream-of-consciousness.
does "detroit rock city "count? even tho I don’t think they make it to the concert
Chicago - “Wishing You Were Here” (line about “same old show in a different town on another time”, another line “on the road it’s a heavy load”)
Bryan Adams - “Summer of '69” (part of the singer’s reminiscences include the band he was in at the time)
Foreigner - “Jukebox Hero” (singer becomes an arena musician over the course of the song)
“All the Way from Memphis” – Mott the Hoople
“The Bride Stripped Bare by ‘Bachelors’” – Bonzo Dog Band, about playing the pub circuit.
Tennessee Flat Top Box by Johnny Cash
Albert King - I’ll Play the Blues For You
Moody Blues - “I’m Just a Singer In a Rock and Roll Band”
“Running On Empty” is the greatest “on the road” album ever. I cannot stress how much I love this album, from start to finish. The only contender, recorded in a similar fashion, is R.E.M.'s “New Adventures In Hifi”, which is their last great album.
My own contributions, though they are rather roadie songs:
Motörhead- We Are The Road Crew (Lenny spoke from experience, he used to be a roadie for, among others, Jimi Hendrix before joining Hawkwind and later forming Motörhead)
And another roadie song, a sad one, “Tonight’s The Night” by Neil Young
“Superstar” by Carpenters is about a woman who fell in love with a rock star when he visited her town, and she remembers the time they had together when she hears his song on the radio. Or maybe she’s delusional, and he has no idea she even exists.
“Leaving on an Airplane” by John Denver
“Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry
“Gold” by John Stewart, sung with Stevie Nicks
My favorite is the Beautiful South’s wry little number about song writing - Song For Whoever.
Deep so deep, the number one I hope to reap
Depends upon the tears you weep, so cry, lovey cry, cry, cry, cry
Oh Cathy, Oh Alison, Oh Phillipa, Oh Sue
You made me so much money, I wrote this song for you
Tenacious D - “Tribute”.
It doesn’t have to be a true story.
Guitar Man by Bread
