# Pop songs that mention Superman **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 29, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203 "2006-11-29T16:24:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/41 "2006-11-30T03:57:53Z")
I’ll add Don Williams _I Believe in You_ to the list, although it’s not exactly “pop”: I don’t believe virginity, Is as common as it used to be. In working days and sleeping nights, That black is black and white is white. That Superman and Robin Hood, Are still alive in Hollywood. That gasoline’s in short supply, The rising cost of getting by. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/42 "2006-11-30T03:59:46Z")
Dung Beetle, the disco one you mention is “Superman” by Celi Bee & the Buzzy Bunch (1977). ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/43 "2006-11-30T05:05:09Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Julie Brown had a song “I like them Strong and Stupid” with a line The kind of guy who’s right for me Superman with a lobotomy (not sure of the first line, but am of the second. ) [/QUOTE] “I Like Them BIG and Stupid”, actually. _What kind of guy does a lot for me? A Superman with a lobotomy My fathers outa Harvard My brothers outa Yale But the guy I took home last night Just got outa jail._ ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/44 "2006-11-30T05:19:59Z")
The Kinks: (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman David Bowie: The Superman (although this Superman is more Nietzsche/Shaw than Siegel) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/45 "2006-11-30T12:52:39Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Aponte Jr.] Dung Beetle, the disco one you mention is “Superman” by Celi Bee & the Buzzy Bunch (1977). [/QUOTE] Thank you! I was really hoping someone would come along and confirm that I didn’t imagine that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gredbioz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6a8cbe/32.png) [@gredbioz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gredbioz)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/46 "2006-11-30T14:10:18Z")
> [@](#): > > _Take off the blazer, loosen up the tie > Step inside the booth, Superman is alive_ - Jay-Z, from “Kingdom Come” the title track from his new album. The song and album are named for a Superman comic. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/47 "2006-11-30T14:11:21Z")
[QUOTE=Lochdale] What about Genisis’ the Carpet Crawlers? Doesn’t it mention kryptonite? [/QUOTE] “Mild mannered supermen Are held in kryptonite And the wise and foolish virgins giggle With their bodies glowing bright” ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/48 "2006-11-30T14:13:24Z")
Not mentioned so far, or on the website **Atomic Dog** linked to. Maybe that’s because Superman’s not mentioned by name in the song, but check out the third line. That’s definitely a reference to Superman. Matchbox 20, Real World _I wonder what its like to be a super hero I wonder where I’d go if I could fly around downtown From some other planet, I get this funky high from a yellow sun Boy I bet my friends will all be stunned, they’re stunned_ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/49 "2006-11-30T14:52:25Z")
**Eminem** , _Superman_: \*You know you want me baby You know I want you too They call me Superman I’m here to rescue you I wanna save you girl Come be in shady’s world… \* It goes very downhill from there. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/50 "2006-11-30T15:49:36Z")
Tangentially related: “Brainiac’s Daughter” by the Dukes of Stratosphear ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/51 "2006-12-18T13:22:19Z")
[QUOTE=mobo85] There’s an old legend that says if you play the end of _Sergeant Pepper’s_ backwards, you can hear the Beatles saying “We’ll fuck you like Superman,” [/QUOTE] [Not quite.](http://www.xs4all.nl/~fsgroen/Albums-B/BeatlesSgtPepper.htm) > [@](#): > > And the famous “Inner Groove” - the snippet of pointless conversation that sticks in the album’s run-out groove and that was not included in the original American version of “Sgt. Pepper” - has an equally zany genesis. Around the time of Sgt. Pepper’s release, McCartney explains, “a lot of record players didn’t have auto-change. You would play an album and it would go, ‘Tick, tick, tick,’ in the run-out groove - it would just stay there endlessly. We were whacked out so much of the time in the Sixties - just quite harmlessly, as we thought, it was quite innocent - but you would be at friends’ houses, twelve at night, and nobody would be going to get up to change that record player. So we’d be getting into the little ‘tick, tick, tick,’: ‘It’s quite good, you know? There’s a rhythm there.’ We were into Cage and Stockhausen, those kind of people. Obviously, once you allow yourself that kind of freedom . . . well, Cage is appreciating silence, isn’t he? We were appreciating the run-out groove! We said, ‘What if we put something, so that every time it did that, it said something?’ So we put a little loop of conversation on.” I’ve heard it on _Rarities_. Doesn’t sound like anything except party noise, IMO, but I have heard people give the “Superman” translation. ---
**Author:** ![Monstera\_deliciosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monstera_deliciosa/32/109_2.png) [@Monstera\_deliciosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstera_deliciosa)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/52 "2006-12-18T16:05:26Z")
[QUOTE=Jackknifed Juggernaut] The first rap song I ever liked when I was just a kid featured Superman: _Jam On It_ by **Newcleus** _\_ We rocked this bet with a 12 inch cut called Disco Kryptonite [/QUOTE] That would be “We rocked his butt with a 12 inch cut…” I wasn’t a kid, but I loved that jam too. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/53 "2006-12-19T05:29:32Z")
Kenny Rogers has a new song out titled “The Last Ten Years (Superman)”: [QUOTE=Kenny Rogers] We lost Charlie Brown, Ray Charles an’ Johnny Cash We even lost Superman, mhm. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/54 "2006-12-19T17:50:48Z")
[QUOTE=Rilchiam] [Not quite.](http://www.xs4all.nl/~fsgroen/Albums-B/BeatlesSgtPepper.htm) [/QUOTE] Well, I’m not saying that’s what it _really_ is. I think I read in an old _Rolling Stone_ interview that one of the Beatles (Paul, perhaps?) listened to it after hearing the rumor and was surprised that it did sound like that! ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/55 "2006-12-19T23:53:33Z")
Okay, but you still don’t have to play it _backwards_, is all. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/56 "2006-12-20T00:17:20Z")
[QUOTE=Rilchiam] Okay, but you still don’t have to play it _backwards_, is all. [/QUOTE] You do if you want to hear what supposedly sounds like “We’ll fuck you like supermen.” (I heard this done on a radio special once, and it requires about the same amount of wishful thinking as hearing “Number nine” backwards as “Turn me on dead man.”) Forwards it sounds like “I never do see any other way.” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/57 "2006-12-20T01:22:46Z")
_Used to Be_ by Stevie Wonder and Charlene. It contained the line, “Superman was killed in Dallas,” which was a reference to JFK. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/58 "2006-12-20T07:55:11Z")
I wanted to find info about the theme song to **Scrubs** , but apparently there are at least a dozen songs (mostly rap) with the lyric “I’m not Superman.” Oh, also: “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/59 "2006-12-21T04:02:31Z")
According to [IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285403/soundtrack), the main theme for Scrubs is titled Superman and was written and performed by Lazlo Bane. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203/60 "2006-12-21T15:34:40Z")
In _Der Fuhrer’s Face_ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, a choir of brownshirts sings: _Are ve not der supermen? Aryan pure supermen? Ja, ve ist der supermen! Super-duper-supermen!_ It’s not really a reference to Superman but rather to Hitler’s “master race” nonsense, but wasn’t it Nietzche who first wrote about the superman in the first place? And wasn’t that the same source material for Nazism and the name of the superhero? Or am I off track here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-that-mention-superman/382203.md?page=2)