That ‘Shining’ thing was fucking Brilliant!
Not much (if any) rap mentioned yet. Here’s two examples of many:
“Rock Superstar”/“Rap Superstar” by Cypress Hill
“Stan” by Eminem
To widen the range a bit:
Der Leiermann (from Schubert’s Winterreise + here in English:
L’Accordëoniste - Piaf:
In addition to “Piano Man” and “The Entertainer” mentioned above, Billy Joel also gave us “Scandinavian Skies” which is about a tour. I don’t think he enjoyed it.
Meanwhile, Paul and Storm had these about a much lower budget tour:
Recut trailers are a thing.
Troubadour - George Strait. George Strait - Troubadour (Closed-Captioned) - YouTube
Baby Girl by Sugarland
The Kinks album Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round has several songs about being a musician, notably “Get Back in Line” and “Top of the Pops.”
The Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard went to #1 on the country chart for Waylon Jennings, who can be seen playing a guitar in the opening credits for which he sings said song.
But they don’t show his face; and, to get all meta for a moment, when he’d do the song in concert, Jennings would add a bit about being the guy who gets his hands but not his face shown on TV…
Also “Denmark Street”:
You go to a publisher and play him your song
He says ‘I hate your music and your hair is too long
But I’ll sign you up because I’d hate to be wrong’
I’m a good old boy.
You know my mama loves me.
But she don’t understand
They keep showing my hands
Not my face on TV.
Naturally, it’s his mother who complains. She’s probably the only person on Earth who loves that face.
A different Guitar Man. Jerry Reed this time.
Kick Out the Jams by the MC 5 (although you really have to parse the lyrics to understand what they’re saying)
King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Comment or song suggestion?
Song suggestion. I refer to Prefab Sprout’s song about an aging one-hit wonder
Stan Rodgers, Song of the Candle
Tonight, in a room full of candles, another cup of madness drains away
And at times it gets so hard to handle
Knowing one more simple song has swiftly taken wing
And I’m left alone to hear the song a lonely candle sings
I’m sure Leonard Cohen wrote a bunch of songs that fit the OP, here’s one:
So I got to wondering, what does “25 or 6 to 4” mean? Is is a reference to musical time signatures or something?
According to this , it is indeed about trying to write a song in the middle of the night, and the title merely refers to it being “25 or 26 minutes before 4 AM”.
Or we can refer to the words of the Master:
(He confirms that the writer is up in the wee small hours, struggling to come up with some lyrics)
A friend of mine once told me the song was about a guy who has been up until that time of morning (“25 or 6 to 4”) doing acid. I figured, well, all the lyrics seem to check out okay for that. “Spinning room is sinking deep” and “Should I try to do some more?” I’m not arguing the point, but, by God, that’s always been what it’s about in my head, and I’m going to cling tenaciously to it.