It’s not a lie if you believe it.
How about Putting On The Ritz:
Dressed up like a million dollar trouper
Trying hard to be like Gary Cooper
Super-Duper.
Elvis Costello - God’s Comic:
So there he was on a water-bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette,
listening to Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s “Requiem”
Heard Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars.
This hit, that ice cold
Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold
This one for them hood girls
Them good girls straight masterpieces
Stylin’, wilin’, livin’ it up in the city
Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent
Michelle Pfeiffer, Chuck Taylor (kind of) and Saint Laurent
I do! She’s on one of my DeathPool lists, although she’s too old, at 102, for me to get points for her(just a unique pick)
Paul Simon’s The Late Great Johnny Ace
Written in 1983. And while there was a singer named Johnny Ace, this one’s probably actually about John Lennon, who died in 1980.
and
from Don’t Dream It, Be It from Rocky Horror Picture Show
“God bless Lili St. Cyr”. (who was a stripper who began a line of erotic lingerie after she retired.)
Not sure if these count as "in passing but…
Rock n’ Roll Murder–Leaving Trains
I Do the Rock– Tim Curry
“Fixed on the front of her Fassbinder face was the kind of a smile that only a rather dull child would have drawn while attempting a graveyard in the moonlight.” - Roger Waters, “4:33 AM (Running Shoes)”
She was born in November 1963
The day Aldous Huxley died
“Run Baby Run” - Sheryl Crow
Elvis Costello’s “Complicated Shadows”:
You can say just what you like in a voice like a John Ford film
Take the law into your hands
You will soon get tired of killing
In those complicated shadows
The Go-Betweens - Lee Remick [not her since she’s the title character in the song]
I love Lee Remick, she’s a darling
She was in The Omen with Gregory Peck
She got killed, what the heck
Her eyes are like gems
She’s an actress for Screen Gems
Jello Biafra + Mojo Nixon - Buy my snakeoil
C’mon and buy my snake oil
Til my well runs stinking dry
I’ll be your Rondo Hatton
I’ll be your Dwight Frye
Get mighty jealous watchin’
My old roomates gettin’ signed
The world owes me a living
I want my taste of the pie
and further down the song …
Punk without rebellion
We’ll call it Grunge ® for you
I’ll dress just like Don Henley
And sing just like him too
Done Too Soon by Neil Diamond starts out with a list of the famous:
He might hold the record.
Listening to Moments of Pleasure by Kate Bush…
He meets us at the lift
Like Douglas Fairbanks
Waving his walking stick
“Buy Me A Condo” by Weird Al Yankovic
Gonna sell me Bob Marley records,
Gonna get me some Jackson Browne
Not to mention Celluloid Heroes:
Although, since celebrity is the actual subject matter of the song, I’m not sure this qualifies as “in passing.”
The Tractors had a #11 U.S. country hit in 1994, Baby Likes To Rock It, which includes the line “Got brother Jimmy on the T.V.–killer on the stereo”, a reference to TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and his cousin, singer Jerry Lee Lewis.
“Manic Monday” by The Bangles
Six o’clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissing Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
Eddie Money - “Take Me Home Tonight”
*
Just like Ronnie sang…*
What is cool is that it’s a duet with Ronnie Spector.
We can circle back here with the Dead Milkmen’s Punk Rock Girl:
Security guards trailed us
to a record shop
We asked for Mojo Nixon
They said, “he don’t work here”
We said, “if you don’t know Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin’!”
(I don’t have one for Jello Biafra, but I’m sure they’re out there)
Bob Dylan kept it up his whole career. From Thunder on the Mountain (2010):
I was thinkin’ 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying
When she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee
There’s always Outkast’s Hey Ya: Now all the Beyonce’s, and Lucy Lu’s, and baby dolls
Reminiscing by The Little River Band
Well that’s the way it began, we were hand-in-hand
Glen Miller’s band was better than before
We yelled and screamed for more
And those Porter’s tunes made us dance across the room – that’s what the lyrics site had, I thought it was “Cole Porter’s tunes”
It ended all too soon
On the way back home I promised you’d never be alone