While driving today, the Zep song Black Dog came on the radio, and it occurred to me that it’s another of those songs where the title has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics.
Apparently a black lab running around on the grounds of the recording studio inspired the title.
Linky no worky (maybe it wasn’t supposed to).
Dylan seemed to enjoy doing this
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Postively 4th Street
Tom Thumb Blues
My Back Pages
and Coldplay Vida la Vida
ETA:
Yeah, Baba O’Riley is a thread-winner for sure.
Weird. Let’s try that again, with the money quote added, so the link is superfluous:
The title is a reference to a nameless black Labrador Retriever the band used to see wandering the Headley Grange studio grounds. The dog would disappear in the evening and return exhausted in the early morning, before resting all day and repeating his evening sojourns.
Don’t forget what may be the greatest non-sequitar title of all time: Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.
12 x 35 = 420.
Woah… 
I guess that’s why they call it the blues by Elton John. The song says a lot about having the blues, but it never says why it’s called the blues.
New Order, love 'em though I do, have written some pretty naff lyrics over the years. And the song titles seem to have nothing to do with the ostensible subject. “Bizarre Love Triangle” which, as far as I can tell, isn’t about one, “Ceremony,” “Everything’s Gone Green,” the list goes on and on.
I’m more bugged because nobody ever says “…why they’re called The Blues”…[/obsessive grammarian]
That one was inspired by a vibrant spring morning with brand new leaves sprouting up everywhere. Yeah, the subsequent lyrical theme is just your garden variety (heh) broken heart kind of lament, but at least the genesis was inspired by an actual event.
Similarly, a song title like D’yer Mak’er has almost nothing to do with the contents of the song, plus the added confusion of accents.
David Cross named the tracks on at least one album like this (it’s actually biting political commentary, live during the Gulf War, with lines like “How fcked up is it that I have to watch the BBC news to find out what’s happening in America?”).
“It’s Not Funny” Track Listing:
Certain Leaders in Government Look or Act like Certain Pop Culture References!
Women, Please Rinse Off Your Vagina and Anus!
I’ve Taken a Popular Contemporary Pop Song and Changed the Lyrics to Comment on the Proliferation of Starbucks in My Neighborhood!
A Rapid Series of Comical Noises!
Although Indigent, Rural Families Have Little to Say in the Matter, Third Rate Public Education Has Kept Them Ignorant and Thus, Great Sources of Ridicule!
My Child is Enthralling, Especially When It Says Something Unexpectedly Precocious Even Though It Doesn’t Understand What It Just Said!
My Immigrant Mom Talks Funny!
When It Comes to Jews, Behavior One Might Perceive as Obnoxious and Annoying I Present as ‘Quirky’ but It’s Okay to Joke About It Because I, Myself, Am Jewish
Pandering to the Locals!
Even Though I Am in the Closet, That Won’t Prevent Me from Getting Cheap Laughs at the Expense of Homosexuals!
Weathermen Have Become, for the Most Part, Obsolete!
When All is Said and Done, I am Lonely and Miserable and Barely Able to Mask My Contempt for the Audience as I Trot Out the Same Sorry Act I’ve Been Doing Since the Mid-Eighties!
Fun fact: that song title is from an old joke, though the spelling is tortured, either to match a particular Brit accent, or because if the actual wording was used, the song title would be even more of a head scratcher.
The joke:
“Jamaica? (D’yer Mak’er?)”
“No, it was her idea.”
Hence my mention of accents. The Brits got it, the Americans didn’t.
There seem to be a good number of bands that go for rather abstract titles. In the 90s it especially seemed popular, but probably just the general genre of music I listened to (college/alt/indie rock) liked doing that.
From The Smashing Pumpkins:
Cherub Rock
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Mayonasie (sic)
Rhinoceros
Geek USA
Thirty-Three
etc
Green Day:
Longview
Basket Case
Good Riddance
Brain Stew
Stereolab: every song
Oh, excellent! I actually cannot think of a single song of theirs where the title is somewhere in the lyric. Also, I often have a damn hard time understanding/hearing the lyrics, anyway, and half the time they’re in French.
Sure it does, he states that “time on my hands, could be time spent with you” . And then he states that this time could be better utilized “laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder under the covers”, but it isn’t so. I guess thats why they call it the blues, he has wasted time on his hands and its called the blues.
Eh, I think the joke is perfectly understandable with the American pronunciation of ‘Jamaica’.
Yes, but not when the DJ pronounces the title as “die-er maker.”